[RetailEdge Moderator]

We know we probably talk about this too much but every year we hear from customers who have lost data due to:
1. Fire
2. Computer Crashes
3. Accidental Overwrites or Purges (oops)
4. Theft
5. Hard Disk Corruption

In all cases this data loss could have been prevented by simply backing up each night. We know that remembering to back up can be a bit of a pain but it's even more painful when you need a backup and don't have one.

Try These Backup Strategies

Here are some backup strategies you can use.

Take backups off-site. In the case of a fire, hurricane, flood (real events) or other catastrophe, you will want to have the backup available to restore into a new system. Backup to a removable flash drive and take it home or to a secure location (not the store).
Consider automatic backup solutions. There are many companies that can perform automated backups (e.g., Carbonite, MozyPro, etc.). They can be pretty cost effective and they will automate the process. Just be careful and make sure the backup process is working. Don't find out months later your nightly backups have not been occurring (another real event).
Make sequential backups. RetailEdge backups are full backups of all your RetailEdge data. So if you just make one backup and overwrite each time then you can never go back to a previous state. Some backups you might consider? Monday through Sunday, end-of-year, pre-physical inventory, post-physical inventory or pre-purge backups. This will give you lots of restore points should something bad happen.
Rename your backups. RetailEdge backups will default to a name that includes the current date. This is done to assist with the incremental backup process described above. But if you don't rename the backups properly you can end up filling up the media (flash drive) or worse the entire hard drive (another real-world example) with backup files.
Consider using RetailEdge Island. If you are using RetailEdge Island and it is properly synchronizing, then your RetailEdge Island is performing an almost real-time backup by default (within a couple of minutes). Something you don't have to think about and another Island advantage.