Data storage and retrieval
 

Data storage and retrieval

In my professional capacity, I am obliged to maintain a copy of what I do. I manage a business which is defined as being "data and personal sensitive", so we have to be careful what information we let out to whom. So on paper it goes, and lots of reams of paper go into an ever-expanding file of paper. Faxes, letters, spreadsheets, emails, invoices etc.

I am fortunate, however, that all these copies of what I do are in one very large filing cabinet so I always know from where to retrieve my historical data.

Now here I am in the computer world.

When I issue an email (or respond to an email) it is stored in my "sent items" folder within my email program. To ensure I have a copy, I "back up" my email data to a secure storage medium (i.e. I print it out).

When I issue an invoice in electronic format (always eventually paid by the recipient, I might add), it is stored in some accounting database buried in the ether there.

When I create a spreadsheet (or word processing document, whatever) it is stored somewhere ELSE than my email program or my accounting database, but again, to secure the history and reliability of retrieval, I print a copy.

When I issue (or respond to) a post on a bulletin board (such as this) I do not know how to retain a copy of my missive, it is held by some server out there in the great ether, so I create it in Notepad (as I am doing now) and print it out to ensure I have a copy.

My question is: My printer is getting ever so tired of printing out information that is secured elsewhere in electronic format, but I am concerned that because of the several ways of storage, I might not be able to retrieve the data. I am keen to retreat from my ever-expanding paper filing system.

How do I overcome my desire to retain a hard copy of things I type on a computer (when I am not entirely sure of being able to retrieve it without printing it?)

Any suggestions?

p.s. I am an Undertaker.

Try buying a CD burner. If you use a CD-RW (a re-writable CD-ROM), you can update your information as often as you like, and keep an up to date record. It would probably be worthwhile to backup your backup every now and again, as CD's can scratch, or break, and doubling up your backup can serve as insurance against Murphy's law (but Murphy will always find a way...).

Judging by the "Black Stump" at the bottom of your post, you're in Oz? I bought a DVD burner the other day for just over AU$200. A CD burner (at a guess) might be around the AU$50 mark, certainly less than AU$100. I remember buying a CD burner not so many years ago for over $2000.

If you are backing up vast amounts of data, maybe tape storage is the way to go. It's slower than a CD, but generally more robust.

It's a dilemma... The number of times I have personally tried to slipstream my business processes, and introduce the "paperless office", I've ended up with more bl@@dy paper than when I started.
Good luck!:ok:

DubTrub,

Thinking about the amount of Data you are keeping, a good Dual Standard DVD+/-RW is the way to go. (It also burns CDs, so you get the best of all worlds.) ;)

Setup a couple of fire safes in multiple locations and setup days of the week for each location that you take that day's backup to. That way you have your data in difference locations, in case something happens to one of the locations.

Take Care,

Richard

One of the problems I've found with data backup is that the default location for each programs data files are all over your hard disc. So its worthwhile creating a new directory (say c:/data) on your hard disc, and then organising your files from there. So I then have c:/data/word, c:/data/excel, c:/data/email folders, etc. It then takes a few minutes at the end of each day to copy these files to a CD RW, or whatever. I've got a small network at home, so I also keep a periodic backup on another machine, just by copying the c:/data directory.

And if you wonder why I bother taking backups so often, well you can probably guess .........

cur

DubTrub

If you're worried about the risk of over-writing stuff you want to keep, use CD-Rs. I would be suprised if you managed to fill one of those with the electronic equavalent of your paper docs, even allowing for Windows-bloat. Backup all your data to a new CD each week. Even if you use a new CD each day you will probably save money against your paper-budget.

This biggest problem, as curmudgeon point out, is that This is probably my biggest Windows annoyance -- it's very tricky to cleanly backup everything you need (not strictly relevant, but related, is the issue of MS progs not only storing their data all over the shop, but squirreling their configuration info all over the place as well)

Even better than a C':\data directory: Partition the HD & use only the 2nd partition for all your data. Backing up becomes simpler because you need only copy the entire partition as an image using one of the commonly available disk imaging programs.

The awkward bit is forcing the various Windoze programs to use that partition. Lots of them allow you to specify their storage location, others need a registry hack to do it. There are utilities available that can assist eg TweakUI.

How about storing stuff electronically off-site - like at a data centre (web host type co), - ensure they do daily backups and store those off-site and bob's your uncle...

But the DVD route is good too....simple and capacious.

Well, as the pussy cat said to the owl, it all depends on how much data you've got, and how often you might need to access it.

While I certainly wouldn't dismiss backing up onto CD-R or (to a lesser extent) CD-RW, here's a somewhat different view.

I do a lot of computer literacy testing and have to keep all the files associated with each test for 42 months. All the files associated with each test are kept in an individual folder, which can vary in size from about 50Kb to somewhat more than 1Mb. Candidates need to complete seven tests to achieve certification. This creates a problem because candidates may do the tests over a period of three years - so keeping them organised chronologically is not a good solution because accessing a single candidate's cumulative results could mean a lot of CD shuffling. And worse than that, a query for a single candidates results doesn't give one a clue of when he/her might have done their tests. This is a significant problem because I currently have around 10 000 folders (about 18GB of data).

When it comes to back-ups, a truism is that the more difficult/inconvenient and slow the process, the less likely it is to be done on a regular basis. And writing back-ups to CD Rom is neither particularly convenient, nor particularly fast, and is labour-intensive (unless you've got the luxury of a magazine-fed burner that plops a fresh CD into the carrier when so requested - a device you won't easily find down at your friendly computer store). Also you need to label and store your CD's somehow - not a trivial task. And I have some doubts (and somewhat irritating personal experience) of the data on CD's not always being available when actually required.

So, I rely on two forms of backup.

Firstly, I have two hard disks installed (40Gb), and the entire operational disk is mirrored onto the second disk on a regular basis. Which (hopefully) takes care of the possibility of the operational disk croaking and/or having an unconstrained out-of-case experience. You just have to resist the temptation to use the second disk for ad hoc storage.

However, this would not help if some local villain took a liking to my system and removed the entire system.

So, I have a 3rd disk in an external IDE enclosure which plugs into the USB port. Cost for the enclosure and the 40Gb drive (which one buys separately) was less than 100 pounds - cheap for the peace of mind that it buys me. This drive (it's about the size of a paperback book) gets locked away well away from the system.

The initial copy (currently 27Gb) is a kingsize pain, but the incremental back-ups aren't too bad. And at least you don't need to shuffle CD's, nor do you need to exercise grey matter in deciding what you do or don't need to back up - just back up everything!

Such a system may or may not suit your needs. But it is an alternative to paper and/or CD's.

For what it's worth ....

OK, thanks for all your help, folks, I have installed a second hard drive with an auto-backup that backs up chosen data to the second drive. I will also be keeping some CD's as a second backup.

Incidentally, this still doesn't store the messages I post on Pprune.

DubTrub,

I do not know of any easy way to autosave your posts on your computer, but you could use this link:

DubTrub Post Results

And Manually back them up. (From there you can use View Source to make an HTML Link page too.)

You might want to send an email to the admin to see if they have any database retrieval options to pull up all your posts in their entirety, so you can back them up from time to time.

Take Care,

Richard

In my business, I work on essential files on my workstation hard drive. At the end of the session, I backup the software to the server, then e-mail it to my home. Thus, essential docs are saved in three computers in 2 locations [server is on site]; it is a cunning part of my disaster plan!