This week we've been talking to a company whose developers didn't get their backup strategy right, a hard disc on the server hosting their site failed, the web hosts didn't have a recent backup and neither did the developers. They have had to scrabble about to get the site back in working order using backups from December 2007.
I'm happy to report that Turtlereality would have had all of this under control! We have all of our office data backed up to a duplicate hard disc, backed up to an offsite location and archived for long term storage. Our web hosting too has daily backups of files and databases to a separate secure location.
I've been quite paranoid about security and backups ever since I had a virus infect a machine about 10 years ago. I've found that this is often the case, people suffer once and then get the message that you can't be too careful.
After quite a lot of searching and trialling of various systems we've started using backup software from bullguard.co.uk. It lets us back up vital data to a seperate hard disk in the office and encrypted versions go to a usb memory stick and a remote internet server. The usb stick goes into my pocket when I leave the office and makes me feel very secure, even if the building burned to the ground we would have enough data in my pocket to keep everything going - and it's encrypted so our clients are protected if I leave it on the train.
We also archive files onto DVD for long term storage and have a separate system backing up our office server operating system. You really can't be too careful with other peoples valuable and sensitive information.