Common Questions

Q: What is Backup4All Professional?

A: Backup4all is a backup software for Windows. It protects your valuable data from partial or total loss by automating tasks, password protecting and compressing it to save storage space. The Professional version will allow you to back up to disk, CD, DVD or via FTP. It will also create Full backups, Differential backups and Incremental backups giving you the flexibility to manage your data and the amount of on-line storage required.

Q: Do I have to use Backup4All on my computer to use PC Backup Vault to store my on-line backups?

A: No. We recommend Backup4All for PC users as we believe it to be one of the best products available for all types of backup. You can back up a computer using any standard FTP program to transfer your backup files to our server.

Q: What is the difference between the backup types?

A: The three backup types that can be done to an on-line server are: Full Backup: Archive of all files and directories defined in the backup. For example, all the files in the "My Documents" folder, or all the data files in your accounting system. Differential Backup: This backup will determine which files have been modified since the last Full backup. Differential backups can become quite large but they have the advantage of allowing for a very quick recovery of critical data. Incremental Backup: This will backup all the files that have changed since the last Incremental backup. Incremental backups have the advantage of being much smaller and taking much less time to perform than the other two types, but take longer to recover.

Q: What backup type should I use?

A: A backup plan will be different for different types of data. For your "My Documents" folder we recommend a Full backup once a month and an Incremental backup daily. If you have a database or an accounting system you may prefer to make a Full backup every business day.

Q: How long should I keep backup archives?

A: This will depend on the importance of the data. A database or accounting files that are critical to your business should be backed up daily and backups should be kept for a couple of weeks. The length of time backups are kept will depend on how far back you may have to go to recover a complete set of good data. Naturally more backups are better for you or your business to protect you critical information.

Q: Why should I backup the "My Documents" folder every day? I don't make that many changes to my files.

A: A daily backup will ensure that when you do make changes those files are saved. If no files have been changed the program will recognize that no files need to be backed up and will not perform a backup operation.

Q: Why perform a Full backup every month? Why not more often?

A: There is no reason why you can not do a Full backup more often. The only considerations are the amount of time and the amount of storage required. Ideally I would like to be able to recover my files from up to 8 weeks ago which will require two Full backups and all the Incremental backups since the Full backups if I do a monthly Full backup. If I do a Full backup every two weeks then I would require four Full backups and all the Incremental backups. This means twice the storage on-line to hold the additional Full backups. If you perform a Full backup once a week then 8 weeks of recovery will require 8 Full backups and a lot more storage.