Re: Thank Goodness for Backups

[Frank Olson <use_the_email_links@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bob La Londe wrote:
> I use the 2004 Contractor Edition of Quickbooks for all my inhouse
> accounting.  It works great.  I also run a network drive for backups.
> Mostly its so I can access technical manuals from anywhere, but I also
> backup my accounting onto it.
>
> Yesterday my main accounting computer crashed.  Actually I am sure its just
> a Windows error as I can boot with one of my special tools CDs and explore
> the file structure.  Windows just keeps rebooting over and over.  Anyway, I
> grabbed a spare computer off the shelf, loaded my Quickbooks, and restored
> from my backup in less than 20 minutes.  I was able to invoice the jobs I
> needed to, check data, and do a bank deposit, and I was good to go.  I
> bought a couple reconditioned XP Pro work stations on the cheap last year
> for spares and front office work stations when I realized how much Vista
> sucks, and that some of my critical applications won't run on Vista.
>
> No I just need to figure out how to get this "new machine" configured for my
> dual head monitor card.
>
> I have my Quickbooks setup to do an on drive backup everytime it shuts down,
> and a daily early AM backup to my network drive.  Its a standalone network
> drive, although I imagine if you have enough faith in Windows you could just
> use another PC for it, and set it to auto reboot every day to prevent the
> Windows memory error from locking it up.  I would sure like to figure out
> how to get that autobackup on shutdown to be rotued to my network drive or
> another external drive, but there does not seem to be anyplace to configure
> that.
>
>


If you want a really stable server platform that will allow you to save
documents and files from a Windows based network, you should consider
configuring a Linux machine.  You can use any old hardware you  might
have kicking around (Pentium III 450 for instance), but I'd go with a
newer motherboard that you can configure as a RAID server and then
"mirror" two hard drives on it.