POLYTROPE: Support

Some tips on backing up your FileMaker Pro database files

Backing up your data is your responsibility and if you care about your data, if you need your data to get your job done, you'll take that responsibility seriously.

Need some motivation? Then consider the following. All kinds of things can and do go wrong that can cause you to lose your data. Databases by nature are a bit finicky; if your computer crashes, it's possible that your database files could be so badly damaged that you cannot open them again. Computers get stolen (it's happened to us). Thunderstorms and electrical spikes have been known to fry hard disks (that's happened to a couple of our clients). Laptops get dropped, or get Coke or coffee spilled into them. True, the odds of one of these things happening to you next week are small. But they are not zero. And if your files get hosed (for whatever reason), we may not be able to do much for you but express our sincere sympathy.

Bottom line: If your data matters to you, you need to back it up. If you are the main user of the database, you are the person most responsible for this, if only because you're the person who's going to suffer most if you lose six months of data. Don't assume that your office computer guru is taking care of this: ask. Be sure they are being backed up often enough. And be sure you know how to access those backups in an emergency.

Backup methods and media

There are basically two different backup methods: manual and automatic. The main advantage of automatic backups is that you don't have to remember to perform them yourself. One of the advantages of running your FileMaker databases under FileMaker Server is that Server lets you schedule automatic backups of the files. If you don't use Server, but your computer is on a LAN, you can buy software that will let you schedule the backup of your computer's hard disk at a convenient time, say, 3:00 AM. Of course, this doesn't work so well if your primary computer is a laptop that you take home at night.

There are many different backup media, indeed, just about anything that can store digital data is capable of being used for backing up: another hard disk, digital tape, CD, DVD, USB "thumb drives". What should you use?

The most important basic test is that the medium needs to have the capacity to hold what you want it to hold. For example, CD is not a great backup medium unless you seldom backup anything but your database files and you know they aren't larger than a couple hundred MB in size. (Polytrope's two database solutions - CMAssistant and Goodbooks - are seldom too large to put on a CD.) A removable external hard drive can be purchased in mid-2008 for very little money. (August 2008: The La Cie "Little Disk" offers 20 GB of storage for US $50.) Advantage of a drive with 20 GB or 100 GB of storage is that you can make multiple backups, which is a good idea. But a 2 GB USB thumb drive may be large enough to hold down backups, and anything at all is better than nothing!

You also want the medium to be reliable; that means that backing up to zip disks is a bad idea, because Zip disks are about convenience, not reliability.

Finally, you want to backup to a medium that you can access easily if and when you have a failure and need to restore from backup. Tape is cheap and convenient for storing data in the first place, but not so convenient for restoring, because most computers don't have a tape drive attached to them. The most convenient media for RESTORING your data are external drives you can mount on your computer's desktop (over the LAN or by direct connection), CDs and DVDs (assuming your computer has a drive that can read DVD).

If you use an offline backup service - for example, if you backup through the Internet - then these issues might not be pertinent to you, because your files are being stored on hard disks owned by the backup service.

Where to store your backups

The most important question is WHERE to store your backups. There are basically four options here: right on your computer's hard disk (as duplicates); somewhere else in your physical office; off-site and inaccessible; or off-site and accessible via the Internet.

Duplicating files on your hard disk is by far the least effective approach. If your hard disk has a sudden, complete failure, you've lost everything. Duplicating files on your hard disk is useful only if your computer crashes and files are corrupted, or when you're thinking about making a global change to files and you want to create a copy just in case you need to revert to the copy because a mistake occurs. In short, duplicating files right on your hard disk should NOT be considered a form of backup at all. If you do make duplicates of files on your hard disk, you should be sure to compress (zip or Stuff) the duplicates and give them dated names, eg "20071102_MyDatabases_duplicate.zip." Otherwise you can end up confusing yourself about which files are the originals and which the copies.

The simplest form of protection and the one that is needed most often is achieved by duplicating the folder that contains the active database files. Close the files, find the folder and create a zip archive and give that archive a name like "20041210 duplicate.zip". If you don't want to zip or stuff the files, you can duplicate the entire solution folder, but in that case, be sure that you immediately rename all of the files in the duplicate folder to indicate that they are duplicates, e.g. change "My Database Accounts.fp5" to "20021210 backup of My Database Accounts.fp5" and do the same for all the other files. There are freeware utilities that can do this sort of thing for you in two seconds. Alternatively, on Windows you can write a batch file to do this. This takes very little time and it can be a lifesaver if one of the active files becomes damaged.

NOTE: Be sure to close the files on any and all computers before archiving or duplicating them. Duplicating open files can in itself cause them to become damaged!

So you should backup to some external medium. An external hard drive, either directly connected to your computer or mounted over the LAN, is a good choice. Ditto for CD, DVD, or tape. But then you have to think about where that backup stays. If it stays in your office, and your office is robbed or hit by a natural disaster such as flood or tornado or earthquake, there's a good risk you'll lose both originals and backups.

That's why the safest form of backup is off-site backup. And here there are two possibilities: hard to access and easy to access. We recommend that you consider both. Periodically -- once a week, or once a month -- you should copy your files to a Zip disk or burn them to a CD, then take that disk home, or FedEx it to your mother in Nebraska. Admittedly, off-site backups are not very convenient. If your computer crashes while you're trying to print route sheets, it's best to have a duplicate on hand that you can turn to. For more easily accessible off-site backup, sign up with one of the services that backs up your files over the Internet. These give you safety and convenience both. Of course, internet backup is practical only if you have a very fast, very reliable connection to the 'Net. And you can only restore your files from such a backup site if you have access to the Internet - which you might not if you're trying to recover from a tornado.

In short, each method, each medium and each choice of where to store your files has its pros and cons. The only approach to backing up that provides real security is the approach that involves a fair amount of redundancy.

Backing up using FileMaker Server

Using FileMaker Server to host your files provides a bunch of advantages, but two are especially pertinent here.

First, your files are simply less likely to be damaged if you're using FileMaker Server to host them. A crash on your computer seldom causes damages to files that are actually stored on the server machine's hard disk. And if you have set up the server machine according to FileMaker Inc's recommendations (as you should), then it is likely to be very stable. Note that the server machine should be dedicated to running FileMaker Server only. It should not be configured for automatic system updates. Operating-system file sharing should be turned off.

Second -- and more to the point of this page -- hosting your files under FileMaker Server gives you access to Server's excellent backup options. If you use FileMaker Server, you can very easily set up a schedule that gets your database files backed up twice a week or even twice a day. Once the schedule is set up, you don't have to do anything else: the backups are done automatically.

Note however that FileMaker Server can only do so much. If the machine running FileMaker Server crashes, your database files may indeed be running. That's why a dedicated, lean-and-mean serving machine is so important. And FileMaker Server backs up database files to the machine's internal hard disk. So you need to go fairly regularly and create copies of those backup files on some external medium such as CD. Your IT person may be able to automate that process, too.

Backing up without FileMaker Server

If you are not using FileMaker Server, then the datase files must be sitting on some workstation's hard disk and they will need to be backed up from there. Keep the following in mind, however.

You must never have more than one regular copy of a solution's files sitting around on any computer's hard disk, anywhere on your network. By "regular" copy, we mean a copy that has not been compressed or renamed or both.
Make sure that the database files are closed while they are being copied or backed up! Copying files that are open is a good way to produce corrupt and therefore potentially useless backups.
The safest thing is always to backup to a removable medium such as tape, or CD, or removable hard disk, or to one of Iomega's many removable disks such as a Zip disk.
If you prefer to backup to a network volume (or you have no other option), make sure that the files are either renamed or compressed or both.
If one or more of the solution's files does get damaged and you need to turn to a duplicate or backup, be sure that you use the entire backup file set. If one file in a fourteen-file solution is damaged, you should consider all the files damaged. Do not simply throw away the damaged file and put the duplicate in its place!

Redundancy is the safest policy

What do we do ourselves? The most important files on Will Porter's main computer are backed up constantly and automatically over the Internet. Currently WP is using the Carbonite service and so far his experience with it has been great. He also backs up files to a pair of local hard drives every couple of weeks. And important files are also regularly archived to DVD or CD and stored outside his office. Even this is not a completely disaster proof policy, but it's pretty good. Backing up is a bit like exercising. A structured program is best, but anything is better than nothing.

How often should you backup?

How often should you backup? The answer to that question is another question: how much data are you willing to lose forever?

We recommend that our users backup their database files whenever they make significant changes. For most of our users, this means backing everything up two or three times a week, at a minimum. A weekly publication backing up less often than once a week is taking a big, big risk with crucial data.

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