Backup
Data Backup Education
A backup is a copy you can restore on purpose. A recycle bin, an email attachment, and a file you emailed to yourself are not backups. This guide shows how to tell the difference and how to test a restore without drama.
What a backup has to do
Three questions decide whether you have a backup: where is the extra copy, how old is it, and have you ever opened it? If you cannot answer all three, you have hope, not a backup.
The classic teaching picture is three copies, on two kinds of media, with one copy off-site or offline. A small office can meet the spirit of that rule with: the live files, a copy in another service or disk, and a copy that ransomware cannot immediately encrypt — for example an offline disk or a vendor vault with its own login.
Walk-through: restore one file
Do this with a file you can afford to play with, such as a copy of a template, not the only signed contract.
- Pick a file you know existed last week. Write its name and the folder it lives in today.
- If you use Microsoft 365, open the library in the browser, select the file, and look for Version history. Open an older version. Confirm it is readable.
- If you use an external disk, plug it in read-only if you can, find the same file, and open it. Do not drag the whole disk onto the desktop “to be safe”.
- If a backup product shows a list of jobs, restore that one file to a different folder, not over the original.
- Write the date you did this. A restore that worked in January is not proof it still works in October.
If none of those paths exist, you have found the gap. The next step is to choose a copy method for the files you listed in fundamentals, not to buy the first device a search ad shows you.
Cloud history is not always a backup
Microsoft 365 keeps version history and a recycle bin for a limited time. That saves you from “I overwrote the quote”. It does not always save you from an account that was emptied, a retention setting that was shortened, or a file that never left someone’s desktop.
Treat vendor history as a convenience. Treat an independent copy as the backup. The Microsoft 365 guide explains where files should live so that whatever copy method you use has something to find.
Ransomware and copies that vanish together
Ransomware encrypts the files it can reach. If the backup disk is always plugged in as drive E:, it can encrypt that too. If the backup account uses the same password as email, the attacker can delete the cloud copies.
A copy that cannot be changed immediately — disconnected disk, a vault with a different login, a paper print of the few records you legally must keep — is the one that still exists on a bad morning. Test that you can restore from it while things are calm. The awareness page covers the human side of a bad click: cybersecurity awareness.
Example: what to copy in a small office
Mail that is only in Outlook on one PC. The shared quotes folder. The bookkeeping export or the vendor’s own backup if they offer one. Photos of completed work if those are how you invoice. Licence keys and the short list of systems from fundamentals.
You usually do not need a byte-for-byte copy of every laptop. You need the work product and the configuration that would take days to remember. User files on a laptop that never touch the shared library are the first things people lose.
Common mistakes
Buying a disk and never plugging it in after the first Sunday. Trusting “the cloud” without asking which cloud and which login. Storing the only backup in the same bag as the only laptop. Never restoring, then discovering the backup software wanted a paid licence to restore.
Another mistake is copying personal photos and company payroll onto the same unlabeled disk, then lending the disk to a relative. Label disks. Know what is on them.
Backup checklist
- You can name the systems you cannot afford to lose, from the fundamentals list.
- Each of those systems has a copy that is not only “in email”.
- You have restored one test file in the last 90 days, or you have written the date of the last successful restore.
- At least one copy is not sitting connected all day to the same computer that holds the originals.
- The login that protects the copies is not identical to the everyday email password.
- Someone besides one person knows where the copies are.
Questions people ask
Is Time Machine or File History enough?
It is a start for one computer. It does not cover files that only exist in a web app, and a disk left plugged in is still within reach of ransomware. Use it, then add a second copy for the company records.
Can this site run backups for us?
No. The page explains how to think and how to test. It does not operate backup software for a client.
Security habits sit beside backups
A copy you cannot reach after a phishing incident is only half a plan.