Backup

We believe the very best backup is a zipped (not a proprietary format) 'full' copy of all your data on a permanent CD/DVD -R or +R. The backup must be made at least once every day that you make a significant number of changes in the data. The backup must be stored in a different location from your computer. This type of backup can be restored on almost any computer sold in the past 5 years. Most companies state that data on a CD/DVD will last 40-100 (or more) years.

Beware of the term 'compression'. This may NOT be the same as 'zipped'. It may be some kind of proprietary format. Not all 'zip' formats are the same. This is often 'justified' because it will compress more data into a smaller space. This is a worthless justification if you cannot reliably and easily restore the data. Be sure that the compression method is compatible with Winzip and most other 'zip' programs.

Any other type of backup is not as good. Only you have a copy of your data. You should consider the cost of re-creating it, downtime and loss of income when you decide on the type of backup you will make.

We believe that a tape backup is possibly the worst type of backup since it can only be restored on a tape drive like the one that made the backup as well as the same operating system and software. Tape quality is always affected by temperature and many factors that have little or no effect on a CD/DVD. If you send a tape backup to Stratford, we will not be able to do anything with it. We do not have any tape drives and we have no plans to support any type of tape backup. If you send us a CD or DVD, it is likely that we can read/restore your data on every computer that we have.

An offsite backup can be worthless depending on what access you have, the stability of the company, and many other factors not in your control.

An incremental backup is faster than a full backup, but it is worthless without the initial 'full' backup and ALL the incremental backups that follow.

We believe that it is possible for a backup to be worse than no backup if it gives you false confidence that you have a good backup when, in fact, your backup is not usable.

We believe that a backup program with a scheduler is better than a backup program that must be manually started. However, if you have a backup scheduled for 8pm every night and you turn your computer off at 5pm when you close the office, you will not get a backup. If you are not 'computer literate' and/or you do not have much experience with backup and other types of utilities, these may not be obvious. The only way to be certain you have a good backup is to restore that backup on a different computer. If you can't do that, you do not have a backup.

Stratford does not have a copy of its client's data. Stratford does not have access to its client's data. Stratford does not provide hosting services for either programs or data. Stratford programs must be installed on the client computer in order to be used. The programs and client data (patient information) is as secure (only as secure) as the client's computer/network. We recommend that our clients do not ever expose their computer/workstation/servers to the Internet without firewall protection. We recommend that our clients do not enter a significant amount of information into their computer without making a frequent backup on CD/DVD or other media which can be read on a different computer. If you do not understand what this means, you should not obtain Internet access by a computer that contains your confidential patient information until you have received competent, professional help.

There are many good ideas regarding backups in the Stratford manual.

Please send any feedback to support@stratfordsoftware.com. 

Here are some programs we have used and a comment:

1. Acronis - Our primary backup program. It is more than a backup. This program can backup your entire computer so that if your hardware fails, you can restore to a new hard drive without losing anything. It also allows you to upgrade your hard drive to a larger size, create and delete and resize partitions and other functions. Comment: backups may fail (or at least the program tells you it failed). But if you check that same backup by booting to a recovery CD, the backup checks out ok?? Not exactly sure what to say about this. We have reported it to the company but no response was received. We have restored several times so we do know that the program works.

2. Handy backup - this is the type of program that most people want, It is low cost and will backup individual folders and/or files. You could backup the 'ssiwin' folder and you would have everything you need to restore your Stratford programs and data in case of hardware failure.

3. SyncBack - a free program that will probably be all you need. An upgraded (low cost) version: SyncBackSE is compatible with Vista, will backup open files and many other functions.

We have used several other programs that we cannot recommend for one reason or another.

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Last modified: 09/04/13