Remote Backup FAQ

Can I Backup A Macintosh or Linux Computer?

A: Yes
Remote Backup will backup data from any operating system that Windows can see as a mapped (shared) drive letter. For example, if you have-á four workstations and one file server, you can back all five computers up with one copy of the Remote Backup Client.-á Install the Client software on one of the workstations which has mapped drives to all the other computers. Remote Backup will back up the data on the other computers. You can back up data on ANY operating system that can be networked with Windows. This means that you can back up Unix, Macintosh,Linux, AS400, virtually anything that the computer running the Remote Backup Client can access as a shared drive.

A: Yes

Please Note:Your Could Have To Re-Purchase All Your iTunes Music

Do you have a large collection of music that has been purchased from iTunes?
If your drive crashes, a virus hits your computer, or iTunes crashes all of your iTunes music will be lost. Apple does not keep records of what you purchased thru iTunes, nor do they give you credit to download the songs if you do lose them. You will have to buy every song you lost and for many users this could easily cost several hundred dollars. Don't let this happen to you, our remote backup software stores all of your digital music safely off-site where you can easily restore it the so sign up now to protect your iTunes before its to late.

Can I Install The Backup Software On More Than One Computer?

If you use the same user name, account and password on more than one computer, they will all back up, but all of the data could be lost when you try to restore.

The documentation warns strongly against you doing this. Our service is very reasonably priced-á so please don't cut corners here,-á you don't want to risk all of your data being lost. For example, if you use the same user name, account, password, and encryption key, you will all be able to back up, and MAY be able to restore data from several computers.

While our backup program never over-writes a file, sharing accounts in ANY form can scramble the data sets and complicate or entirely prevent restoring the data.

PLEASE TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY - YOU MAY LOSE YOUR DATA, Do not share accounts among separate computers.

How Long Does It Take To Do A Backup?

A: There are several factors that affect backup times. Our servers are are located on the major fiber optic Internet backbone in Phoenix for superior reliability. As a result our servers can handle 1000's of concurrent users.-á Shown below is a list of factors to consider.

Almost all-á internet service providers limit your upload speed to just a fraction of their advertised download speeds, especially with cable and satellite connections. In our tests the average upload speed is 400kbps which is a fraction of the download speeds they offer.
Our backup software compresses your data before sending it to the backup server. Actual compression varies greatly by the type of file. Video,Graphics, and Music are already fully compressed and are usually large files. On the other hand word processing files can be compressed up to 90% and sent in a few seconds.
Full system backups may be faster because many common system files are already archived in our library and do not need to be duplicated.
These are very rough estimates and may vary by a factor of two or more depending on your ISP's actual upload speeds.
Other factors may affect your transfer speeds, including your computer's operating system, processing power and memory; traffic on the your local network, your ISP and the Internet. Your actual connection speed may vary greatly and may not be as high as your ISP claims.

Approximate Data Transfer Rates

transfers all your selected data to our data centers. Subsequent backups take a fraction of the time as they transfer only daily delta block changes. For the larger plans or slower connections, we suggest letting the initial backup run over the weekend. You can also stop the backup at any point and let it resume later where it left off.

Our Exclusive Bit Backup Technology can cut your backup time to seconds for certain file types, click here for more info.

Estimated Initial Backup Times (In Hours)
Estimated initial transfer times to help you estimate how long a backup set might take. Remember that ALL Internet Service Providers restrict the upload speed. In most cases you can expect about 400K per second, that seems to be a fairly universal number.

Internet Connection Type	DSL		Cable
Upload Speed	256K	512K	1.54M
250 MB Backup	1:20	0:35	0:20
4 GB Backup	18:00	9:00	3:00
10 GB Backup	44:00	22:00	8:00
30 GB Backup	To Long	65:00	22:00

A: Yes
Remote Backup Fully Supports Network Drives At No Extra Cost
Remote Backup will backup data from any computer that Windows can see as a mapped (shared) drive letter. For example, if you have four workstations and one file server, you can back all five computers up with one copy of the Remote Backup Client. Install the Client software on one of the workstations which has mapped drives to all the other computers. Remote Backup will back up the data on the other computers. You can back up data on ANY operating system that can be networked with Windows. This means that you can back up Unix, Macintosh,Linux, AS400, virtually anything that the computer running the Remote Backup Client can access as a shared drive.

Can I BackUp Exchange Servers And SQL Servers ?

A: Yes --á There are several ways RBackup can back up Exchange Server and SQL Server databases. Use the method that best suits your needs or that is supported by your version of Remote Backup software:

Note: Remote Backup natively backs up and restores-á Exchange (at the mailbox level), SQL Server (at the database level) and all open and locked files. Backups take place no matter whether the files or databases are open, or closed, or in heavy use.

Exchange Backup

Our software natively backs up open and live Exchange databases. You can also exclude specific Exchange user account folders (e.g. Junk Mail, Deleted Items, etc.) from selected mailboxes, and back up only new messages in selected folders after the initial backup is complete - thereby shortening backup sessions and insuring that you back up only the most critical data. You can even set the Exchange backups so that as new users are added to Exchange, they are also added to the backup system. Restores are at the mail-folder level, per user. ThereGÇÖs no need to shut down the Exchange server for either backups or restores. This is a standard feature at no additional charge.

SQL Server Backup

Our softwarenatively backs up and restores SQL Server databases while they are open and live. It also supports multiple instances of SQL Server while they are in use on a single machine, one per backup job, so thereGÇÖs no need to shut down the SQL Server. This is a standard feature at no additional charge.

A. Yes:
Our remote backup software solves this problem by constantly reevaluating the computer system, adding new files to the backup as needed. Several full copies of each file are stored using a sophisticated version control system unavailable in most other backup software. Version control is one of the most important functions of any backup, you get point in time restore if an important file is changed and then overwritten by a newer version accidentally. With our backup software you can quickly restore the original file and no time or data is lost.

A: Yes
Remote Backup works fine with Windows Vista home and Professional. However there are 2 features in Vista that cause problems for every application that needs to use the system registry.
Both of these problems are listed below.

If you plan on using Remote Backup with Vista you need to make the changes below to insure that Vista allows Remote Backup to run correctly.

1: Windows Vista has a feature called User Access Control (UAC) that prevents any program that needs to access the registry from running. In order to run Remote Backup and many other programs follow the steps outlined below.

Launch MSCONFIG from the Run menu.
Click on the Tools tab. Scroll down till you find "Disable UAC" .
Click on that line.
Press the Launch button.
A DOS window will open. When the command is done, you can close the window.
Close MSCONFIG. You need to reboot the computer for changes to apply.

2. Bit Defender is an anti-virus program that doesn't work very well and it is slowing your Vista system down severely. It also prevents many programs from running properly. It interferes with the proper operation of Remote Backup and needs to be disabled in order for Remote Backup to run correctly. In order to disable Bit Defender follow these steps:

Launch MSCONFIG from the Run menu.
Click on the Start-up tab. Scroll down till you find "Disable Bit Defender" .
Click on that line.
Press the Launch button.
A DOS window will open. When the command is done, you can close the window.
Close MSCONFIG. You need to reboot the computer for changes to apply.

Once you have taken care of these 2 easy steps Remote Backup and many of your other favorite Windows programs will run, and the performance of your entire system improve.

A: Yes
Our Remote Backup program has a built-in Disaster Recovery feature. HereGÇÖs how it works:
After initial installation the program asks if you want to make a Key Disk, be sure you answer yes! The Key Disk contains all the setup information from when you did your initial installation.-á If your computer is destroyed and has to be completely reconfigured, you can simply install the remote-á backup program again. On installation the program asks GÇ£Is this a new installation or a Disaster Recovery?GÇ¥ If you pick Disaster Recovery, you will be asked for the Key Disk. Just insert it, and the new Backup Program-á will set itself up like before, and will contact the Server to download the latest catalog of all your backups. If the Key Disk is lost, you can still recover the the original installation by manually entering the User Name, Password, Account Group, and Encryption Key into the new installation of the program, then selecting the option to GÇ£Synchronize CatalogGÇ¥.

First - Do Not Try To Backup An Entire Drive

A common misconception among new users is that they must make an initial full-disk backup of each hard disk before starting to do daily backups. Such an unnecessary backup can easily be many gigabytes, consisting of files that are part of the operating system or installed applications. These files do not usually need to be backed up because they can be re-installed from the original CDs if needed. Backing them up uses unnecessary bandwidth and an extraordinary amount of time and storage space. There are many good local backup programs that are designed to do complete backups of your drives in case of a system hardware failure. Our Remote Backup is intended to backup your data only.

Remember - It is the data that needs to be backed up. Your data files can easily be a very small percentage of the files on your hard drive. Select backup files carefully. For example If you have 14 gigabytes of documents on your computer, that would be to large to send over the Internet in one backup set.

How Do I Backup Data If The Files Are To Large Upload?

Copy To Disk Is The Answer

This is a feature is included to solve exactly this problem. Copy to Disk operates like a regular Remote Backup session, but instead of sending backups over the Internet to the backup Server, it backs them up to a hard drive or other device connected to your computer that has a drive letter.-á You can send that drive to us and we can copy the data into your backup folder on our server. After this operation the data will be available for restore over the Internet using Remote Backup. The data backed up using the Copy to Disk function can be restored online just like any other backup session. It is encrypted using the same data encryption as all of your other backups.

Deciding What Data To Backup

It can be hard to decide exactly what you should backup. The list below is a good starting point and should give you a few things to think about.

Personal Documents:

If you have a scanner you should scan passports, birth certificates, licenses, and other important personal documents. This will give you a didital copy to use in replacing them if you have a fire, flood, or burglary.

Photos:

Not every digital photo you have is a "keeper", but there are certain ones-á that you don't want to lose under any circumstances. Photos of your family and children, vacations, special events, ect... are irreplaceable. Since most of-á your photos are digital you no longer have photo albums that could be saved. A digital image is gone forever, you can't make another print from a negative.

Music:

If you have iTunes or a collection of MP3 files, there are certain songs you-á would hate to loose. In our research the average client has 500 songs in their collection that fall into that must backup category. To help you calculate storage space 500 songs would average about 1.9 GB of storage space.

Your Email:

If you use Outlook, Outlook Express, or another mail client you need to backup your email data files. Everyone has come to depend on email and you know that there are important information in yours that you wouldnlt want to loose.

Hopefully this will give a starting point to begin planning your data backups. We are available to assist you in creating backup sets that will protect your data if you're unsure where to begin. Please contact us if you need help with this.

Copy To Disk Is The Answer