Methods
If you have multiple computers networked in your office, keeping all your data in a single location (like a file server) and backing that up every night is the recommended way to perform backups. Experts recommend using a 20-tape rotation, which gives you the ability to “go back in time” up to a whole year (in various intervals) to restore important files.
You should also keep the most recent copy of your backup off-site (i.e., at another location away from your office). This is critical because if your building burned to the ground, your data backups would be destroyed right along with it. With a recent off-site copy, you could restore what you need on new equipment and get back to the business of ministry quickly.
They also recommend using enterprise-quality backup software to perform your data backups. Good software, like Veritas Backup Exec and Computer Associates BrightStor ArcServe will schedule everything for you, run automatically and keep logs of everything that does and doesn’t get backed up. These programs can also notify you by email (or some other method) when a backup is finished, if it was successful and whether or not you need to address anything. Aside from a little ongoing monitoring, everything can be automated. All you have to do is remember to change tapes every day.
