Home > Data Management > Database Backup Best PracticesDatabase Backup Best Practices
Do you have a disaster recovery plan in place for your Spectra database? A "disaster" can take on multiple forms, including server or hard drive crashes, lightning strikes, tornados, flooding, theft, fire, or even accidental deletions. However, the most common form of data loss is actually an unrepairable, corrupt database. No matter how many precautions you take to protect your data, circumstances will arise that could potentially corrupt your data. It’s not a matter of "if" but simply a matter of "when" you’ll need a backup copy of your database. For this reason, we highly recommend you back up your data at least once a day.
Did you know that your myStratus database also needs to be backed up regularly? The good news is, we do it for you! We always maintain five backups of your data in separate data centers to protect against catastrophic outages. In addition to that, we also replicate your live data between multiple devices simultaneously to protect your from any hardware failure.
The best backup option is to subscribe to the StudioPlus DataSafe™ service. Every night a copy of your database will automatically be uploaded to our secure servers, ensuring you will always have a backup sitting safe and secure in an off-site location. For pennies a day you can have peace of mind, knowing your data is safe. Read more about DataSafe. Here are instructions to set up your DataSafe off-site database backup.
Another good option is to set up Spectra to automatically back up your database locally and then physically take a copy of the backup off-site with you every day.
If you're not using either of the automatic backup options described above, the "better than nothing" option is to manually back up your database every day.
For Express, Standard, and Professional users:
For SQL and Enterprise users:
Most backup services, such as Carbonite™, Dropbox™, iCloud®, etc., make it clear they are NOT to be used for active databases. The database backup will become corrupt during the backup process and should not be used.