Automated backup

[PJ ENG]

Having and still dealing with a power cut that wiped out our SD machine on Sunday, the issues of "automated backup" has come back to the front,

I used to try a take a snapshot every week but being multi user this has become a pain.

Can i ask what others are doing ? I do have drop box which is where i was storing all the snapshots anyway.

Is it a case of selecting the site 1 folder to be copied ?

Any help would be great

[Buzby]

We snapshot about a dozen times a day on a busy day.
every time changes are made and we walk away from the pc we backup.

backup is to an external SSD which is our Dropbox folder, so snapshots are available on 3 other pcs across 2 locations, as well as on our phones.

[EdHarrison]

Oh my, it is a pain but once bitten lol, I backup mostly only once daily when finishing and never download an order or make a change after.
If I add lots or products I do a few to avoid potentially having to do such labourios stuff twice!
I back up to the local machine then immediately upload to a cloud storage.
I wish I was brave enough to migrate the whole lot to a sensible modern cloud solution like shopify ect but the task is immense.

[John Ennals]

Assuming we're talking about snapshots generated from the SD Desktop menu rather than using snapshot as a generic term, I'm not a fan of using snapshots to make regular backups.

I prefer just to copy the Site1 folder to OneDrive and/or Dropbox at regular intervals. All my product image files are in a folder OUTSIDE the Site1 folder, so the folder isn't too large and the copying is quick. I keep duplicates of all my image files on another computer, so this strategy is enough to enable quick recovery from a catastrophe such as a hard drive failure. Don't forget your image files are also sitting on your web host's server, so as a last resort you can download any missing ones using ftp.

Aside from hardware failures, you can cover most other eventualities by backing up just the Sellerdeck database, ActinicCatalog.mdb. I copy this single file to OneDrive and Dropbox several times a day. I also make a quick copy of it before experimenting with any layout changes; it takes seconds to reinstate the backup copy if (when) it all goes horribly wrong.

You can automate this process by setting up a batch (.bat) file using a text editor, for example:

XCOPY "D:\Sellerdeck v18\Sites\Site1\ActinicCatalog.mdb" "D:\OneDrive\Sellerdeck v18\*.*" /Y

Obviously you need to edit this to match your setup. If you want to back up the whole Site1 folder, just replace [ActinicCatalog.mdb] with [*.*]. It's probably a good idea to back up the shipping database too, so to do that add a second line:

XCOPY "D:\Sellerdeck v18\Sites\Site1\ShipControl\SimpleShipping.mdb" "D:\OneDrive\Sellerdeck v18\*.*" /Y

Save the batch file as SellerdeckBackup.bat or something like that. You can then run it manually by double-clicking on it, or you can automate it using Task Scheduler which is usually found in the Windows menu in Windows Administrative Tools.

Being a belt and braces and another belt sort of guy, I also have Norton 360 which runs an automated incremental cloud backup once a day, PLUS the free version of IDrive backup which does the same thing each evening. That way, I always know that if something goes wrong there's a backup copy out there somewhere...

John

[Mantra]

Assuming we're talking about snapshots generated from the SD Desktop menu rather than using snapshot as a generic term, I'm not a fan of using snapshots to make regular backups.
...
Aside from hardware failures, you can cover most other eventualities by backing up just the Sellerdeck database, ActinicCatalog.mdb. I copy this single file to OneDrive and Dropbox several times a day. I also make a quick copy of it before experimenting with any layout changes; it takes seconds to reinstate the backup copy if (when) it all goes horribly wrong.
...

I have the SD Site 1 located on a partition of the hard drive that is secured using Windows 10 bit locker and do not favour copying the ActinicCatalog.mdb over to any other location because it is old MS Access 2000 format and the information contained is not encrypted and protected so there is a risk that customer data could be compromised.

On the other hand the Site1 *.acd snapshots can not be readily accessed and the information contained does not appear to make much sense to me when viewed on Notepad++ so I believe the Site1 snapshot is a better option perhaps with some date naming sense applied to overwrite previous backups to control the number of backup files retained except perhaps for snapshots needed for a particular purpose i.e. layout changes, tax periods etc.

Being a belt and braces and another belt sort of guy, I also have Norton 360 which runs an automated incremental cloud backup once a day, PLUS the free version of IDrive backup which does the same thing each evening. That way, I always know that if something goes wrong there's a backup copy out there somewhere...

I have Norton 360 but I am conscious that all files in a folder get backed up so if you have multiple backups they all get backed up once and can soon consume disc space. Another disadvantage is that when a database gets corrupted in someway as has happened to me on at least 2 occasions then there is a risk of incremental backups overwriting an existing clean file backup with the corrupted file.

I have backup files copied over onto a NAS but now think that an external SSD would be a better option as this could be retained in a separate location remote from the main PC when left unattended.

Martin
Mantra Audio

[John Ennals]

I think it's a matter of being able to demonstrate that you've assessed the data security risks and taken reasonable and proportionate steps to mitigate them. I feel comfortable with OneDrive's security given the nature and volume of the data I'm storing, but I appreciate that it won't be suitable in all cases.

With Norton 360, at least on the current version, you can back up individual files rather than entire folders by clicking the link "Add or exclude files and folders" in the Backup Settings "What" tab. This allows you to exclude folders but include specific files. The user interface doesn't exactly make this obvious.

John

[NormanRouxel]

Don't rely on the .acd format being obscure. It's essentially the 33 year old ZIP format and can easily be opened by e.g. WinRAR. Once opened you will find a folder called .\CATALOG_SITE (which is basically the site folder) and within that resides ActinicCatalog.mdb.

[Mantra]

Don't rely on the .acd format being obscure. It's essentially the 33 year old ZIP format and can easily be opened by e.g. WinRAR. Once opened you will find a folder called .\CATALOG_SITE (which is basically the site folder) and within that resides ActinicCatalog.mdb.

That's useful to know, thanks Norman

Martin, Mantra Audio

[Mantra]

With Norton 360, at least on the current version, you can back up individual files rather than entire folders by clicking the link "Add or exclude files and folders" in the Backup Settings "What" tab. This allows you to exclude folders but include specific files. The user interface doesn't exactly make this obvious.

Also there is another improvement on the current version of Norton 360 in that you can now delete old obsolete folders and files which was not possible on older versions.

I got rid of the Sellerdeck 2013 folder complete with files saving 2.5GB - it took a while but worth the wait.

For security I will set up an automated incremental Norton 360 cloud back up set for business critical folders and files in addition to those already backed up on my NAS so no need to opt for an SSD solution.

[Mantra]

Having some major backup issues now with Norton 360 v25.4.1 that may have been present for some time since the updates incorporating the Norton Cloud backup was introduced.

I had a Cloud backup set customised to include our most critical files including back office database, finance, SD Site1 snapshots etc. but noticed this was not functioning correctly after a recent Norton 360 update.

Also I checked the other Norton 360 backup sets on my NAS and was surprised to find out that the last backup file date was more than 3 years old!!

Fortunately I have not had the need to restore any of the above files but the current Norton 360 version would not enable me to do this presently in any event, nor, as far as I can make out does it enable you to have backup sets of non-critical files configured to backup to an external device.

I could not find any way of contacting Norton UK support to raise this issue and it was only after giving them a poor 1 star rating stating that the Cloud backup was no longer "fit for purpose" on their Trustpilot reviews that I got a response and they have now been 3 weeks looking into the issue.

I used to be able to delete files that were no longer from the backed up sets to save space and not sure if this is still possible with Cloud backups if it conflicts with a commercial interest to sell more storage space!

For now, I have brought back into use an external hard drive to keep copies of critical files until the Norton backup issue gets resolved.

[John Ennals]

Martin,

I'm also using Norton 360 v25.4.10068 to back up critical files, and it seems to be working as it should. I have multiple backup sets.

You can download backed-up files via your online Norton account, but to restore or delete backed-up files you have to use the Norton desktop app.

I remember years ago with a much earlier version of Norton's cloud backup I couldn't delete my old backups from their server, and neither could Norton support - so they just gave me a load more storage space free of charge! Might be worth asking...

John