Last blog was about What to backup & how to prepare your data to be accessible
This week I am going to focus on Data Base backup & consequently on Email! Yes your everyday Mail Box is more akin to Data Base backup then to any other king of backup.
Data base backup is different. First you have to understand the reality behind any file access system. Any time a file is accessed either by the computer system or another user, be it on the same computer or over the network. The file itself will be locked. That’s means that another user or service cannot delete or copy the open file, in some instances, like in office, the file can be opened in read only mode. In data bases you are accessing the “file”, in fact the data, trough the data base application. To make it simple the application is the only user/service accessing the data inside the data base file & multiple users can access the data itself when using the application. Another problem avoided by this behavior; if for example you want to copy a large data base file when it is accessed by numerous users. Since the copy process is not instantaneous, there will be changes in the file between the time you began the file copy up to the time the copy process is finished. The result will be a corrupted file that you can’t use! So what can we do?
There is several ways to copy (backup) a data base file.
- Copy the data from the data base file with the application itself. The problem is that most application do not have this function embedded & when they do have it, it’s not automatic. You can use it manually for special circumstances.
- Copy the data from the data base file with the SQL engine, a lot better, but the problem with this solution is that the data base engine does not always know how the different data tables are arranged, so the backup result will have all the data but may not be easily accessed or restored in case of a disaster.
- Close the application, so the users will not have access to the data base during the copy process. A lot better but no cookies for you! This system is called “cold backup”, it’s good for small businesses with small data base file that do not work 24/7. But any major company will not want such down times.
- Shadow Copy is the answer. Shadow Copy is an external service that can copy the data base file when it is open, it will access the file trough the SQL engine & it will log any changes made during the backup, then it will copy the changes by the end of the copy process. The result is an exact working copy of the data base file. Bingo!
There are a lot of backup applications that have the Shadow Copy process built-in, for example; Symantec Backup Exec is simple but costly. For those that want to use simple file copy there are Shadow Copy application that will let you access the data base files with any copy process. So that the right way to do this. Just chose the backup application you prefer, check that it does have the possibility to backup open files & data bases then you are fine. Well that is if you want to pay 300$ or more for the ease of use. Small backup solution up to 100$ may not have shadow copy. Windows itself has a very limited Shadow Copy ability, but the implementation is arduous.
Now you are telling yourself, what does that have to do with backing up my mails?
Wait, don’t go yet. I will explain. All your local mail box local application, like Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, Pegasus Mail & others will store you information on some kind of data base. Even if you are the only one accessing this information you will have to apply one of the solutions mentioned above. But first you have to copy your data to you local hard disk;
- Your data is in a free internet mail box. Gmail, Yahoo, Walla & other like them offer free mail box services. Google profess a 99.9% uptime & generally, they are right. The problem is, what if you are one of the Point one percent. Since Google has millions of users, this small percentage is an impressive number. Do you want to count on the law of average or do you want to be sure that your data is secure? What goes for Google goes exponentially for the others free services. Another thing is that Google & other free services changes their terms all the time & the bottom line is that you are not the owner of your own data!
- Your data is on your internet service provider server, or any other paid mail box service. You stop paying, no more data. Again, until you download your data locally you do not own your own data!
Only Gmail service will never delete your data willingly, so having a local copy of your Gmail box should be enough of an insurance. For other mail provider storing your data locally is only the first step. Let’s go over different ways to retrieve your data.
- Most of the free mail box providers on the internet let you retrieve your data trough the POP3 protocol. This protocol will permit most of the mainstream mail applications to store your data locally.
- Yahoo Mail does not let you retrieve your data with the POP3 protocol. You will have to install a third party application to be able to copy your data locally. This app will only work with Microsoft Outlook.
- All paying service provider will aid you in a lot of ways to access your data, either by POP3, Exchange server or other server/client flavors.
So just hookup your mail application to one of this services & it will download your data automatically. What application?
Outlook Express. It’s free with windows XP. It’s old & problematic. It also has a 2GB upper limit on each folder. Furthermore Microsoft does not support it anymore! Local files default path;
C:\Documents and settings \”Your login name”\Local Settings\Application Data \Identities
- Office 2007 or 2010 Outlook is one of the better solutions, but it will cost you! Outlook stores your data in a PST file you have to check from time to time to be sure that it will not blot. Too big a file is never a good idea. If your PST file is to big, just open new ones & archive your older data on it.
- Office 2003 or XP Outlook are old & will have severe size restrictions, it’s store your data in a PST file that have a 2GB upper limit. It can grow bigger than that but will be unstable.
- All Outlook versions XP default data path;C:\Documents and Settings\”user_id”\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook
- Other mail solutions like open source Thunderbird can be used. A simple Google query about default storage location, for those application will let you the exact path
If you have an exchange account with your mail service provider, the data is stored under an .OST file that will let you access your data when offline. Either way you will not be able to copy the data file when the outlook is in use. So either execute a cold backup or use a third party application like Microsoft PST Backup tool. Any solution used will have to be updated often so the data can be retrieved & used in case of disaster.
Once you have your data copied & stored locally you can copy your File or Files to your backup chosen media (see my blog)