Robert,
Here's how the backups work for us at our dental office.
Patient data is collected during the day via 10 small Win98SE work stations
and saved on a 20 GB Linux server. Digital images like X-rays and patient
photos take up about 10 MB per patient. The office manager controls when she
wants to synchronize server files to the removable hard drive cartridge. She
clicks an icon on her desktop to run my script to do an incremental backup
of only new files and just those files that have changed. She can synch any
time she needs to, but normally does this at the end of the day, before
shutting down, or if a thunderstorm is approaching. Yes, its true, we do
live in the lighting capitol of the world.
Incremental backups take less that 5 min on a drive that has old data on it.
(It takes less than half hour on an empty or freshly formatted drive because
all files are copied to the backup.) For example, on Friday she will have
the old Monday hard drive online waiting to be synched. When she says
backup, new or any changed files from Tuesday through Friday are updated on
the Friday backup. Now the Friday backup has the entire database and is
current with the Friday server. The dentist takes the drive home and returns
the next day with the old Tuesday drive ready to repeat the cycle.
The dentist verifies the backups on his home system and has access to ALL
patients records in case of an emergency. Off site storage protects him in
the event of fire or theft at the office.
The 20 GB removable drive stores all patient data not just incremental. We
had a nightmare when we tried to use CD for incremental backup. The office
manager had to log what was on each CD and make an index for each patient.
It was a major job keeping track of what data was on each CD. The office
manager had better things to do and the dentist said NO.
To restore the CD backups in the event of fire would have been a long and
agonizing journey. I just did not want to go there. Restoring from the
removable hard drive is a snap. I ask the office manager to press the
restore button and we go to lunch - its done when we get back. She feels
good and I get a free lunch.
So, Robert, think it out and understand what you really need in the way of
backups. The size of your database will determine what media you should
choose. You may get by with tape or CDs.
Bill
From: "Robert Haeckl" <rhaeckl@tampabay.rr.com>
> Bill Ehlert wrote:
> >snip
> >
> > The dentist keeps 6 hard drive cartidge and rotates them, pulling the
6th
> > for montly saves. Now for the cool stuff - he takes the backup offsite,
as
> > in home, with him every day and brings in an old drive back in the
morning
> > to be updated. He pops the backup in his home computer and verifies
files.
> > Here's the really good part - If a patient calls with an emergency after
> > office hours, he has all their records and Xray images at home! He know
what
> > was done and uses the information to help his patients. I love it when
that
> > happens.
> >
> > snip
>
> Do you dump all file systems or make copies/tars of selected directories
> and files? And if you do a full backup to the harddrive, say once a
> week, can you put daily incrementals on the same HD and seek to the
> appropriate volume if you need to restore?
>
> -Robert
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