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From: taxchat@yahoogroups.com [mailto:taxchat@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of John Stevens, Equi-Tax
Sent: Friday, November 21, 2008 1:04 PM
To: taxchat@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [taxchat] Great Backup System
It writes the data in a proprietary fashion. I can’t open files from Windows.
John Stevens, EA
Stevens Tax & Accounting, Inc., dba Equi-Tax1870 - 50th St. E., Suite 8 Inver Grove Heights ,MN 55077
651-773-5000
FAX 651-457-4529
equitax@unique-software. com
www.equitax.net
From: taxchat@yahoogroups
.com [mailto:taxchat@ yahoogroups. com] On Behalf Of Mel Wolfson
Sent: 11/20/2008 6:19 PM
To: taxchat@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [taxchat] Great Backup System
What I was wondering was whether the software writes the data in a proprietary fashion. If you can open a file in your backup from Windows, I guess that would not be the case.
From: taxchat@yahoogroups
.com [mailto:taxchat@ yahoogroups. com] On Behalf Of John Stevens, Equi-Tax
Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 5:18 PM
To: taxchat@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [taxchat] Great Backup SystemI don’t know, but the system comes as a package, with the dock, the cartridge(s) and the software. Why wouldn’t you want to use the software? I believe it’s optional as to whether you want to install the software.
John Stevens, EA
Stevens Tax & Accounting, Inc., dba Equi-Tax1870 - 50th St. E., Suite 8 Inver Grove Heights ,MN 55077
651-773-5000
FAX 651-457-4529
equitax@unique-software. com
www.equitax.net
From:
taxchat@yahoogroups [mailto:.com taxchat@yahoogroups ] On Behalf Of Mel Wolfson.com
Sent: 11/20/2008 2:36 PM
To:taxchat@yahoogroups .com
Subject: RE: [taxchat] Great Backup SystemOne last question, can you read the data on the backup without using the Quantum software or is it in a proprietary format?
From:
taxchat@yahoogroups [mailto:.com taxchat@ ] On Behalf Of John Stevens, Equi-Taxyahoogroups. com
Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 3:00 PM
To:taxchat@yahoogroups .com
Subject: RE: [taxchat] Great Backup SystemNo, Mel, Gear Up is not recommending a system for which they no longer make the docks. I was stating a hypothetical, a what if scenario, ie. what if Quantum discontinued making the docks, and a dock failed, and I only had a data-filled cartridge with no serviceable dock into which to insert it?
Regarding the fact that the external dock is hooked up to a USB port, it only takes 13 minutes to do a backup of my system after the initial backup, because it leaves all prior data intact, and only adds changed or new data. That was the main reason I found this GoVault system so attractive. I can walk out the door at the end of the day with a complete backup of my server, rather than wait until the next morning to exchange the external hard drive that got backed up during the night. The boot time isn’t an issue at all. John Stevens, EA
Stevens Tax & Accounting, Inc., dba Equi-Tax1870 - 50th St. E., Suite 8 , Inver Grove Heights MN 55077
651-773-5000
FAX 651-457-4529
equitax@unique-software. com
www.equitax.net
From:
[mailto: taxchat@yahoogroups .com ] On Behalf Of Mel Wolfson taxchat@yahoogroups .com
Sent: 11/20/2008 12:31 PM
To:taxchat@yahoogroups .com
Subject: RE: [taxchat] Great Backup SystemGearUp is recommending a system for which they no longer make the docks? Perhaps there is a software only version that would work with external drives. My one gripe with the usb drives is that they are much slower and if you have more than one installed on a pc, it takes much longer to boot. (on a newer pc with
that may not be an issue). Vista
From:
[mailto: taxchat@yahoogroups .com ] On Behalf Of John Stevens, Equi-Tax taxchat@ yahoogroups. com
Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 1:11 PM
To:taxchat@yahoogroups .com
Subject: RE: [taxchat] Great Backup SystemThanks for the input, Mel. I appreciate it. I still have my external hard drives that I used to use. Maybe I’ll hook them back up for redundancy. Another idea may be to purchase an additional dock in the event that the dock fails in 5 years or so, and Quantum has discontinued making the GoVault docks. I know that some people used to always purchase extra tape drives for the same reason. I already have an extra cartridge.
I don’t think you’re paranoid – the more backup the better.
My own tech guy has similar reservations about online backup. He’s been in the business for 30-40 years, was a programmer/systems analyst at Unisys after graduating in math in ’72, and eventually set up his own shop. He’s been building my computers for about 10 years, and has helped me through hard drive crashes, in fact, one server crashed about February 10th a few years ago, and I was up and running very quickly. I was using a tape backup at the time. He’s the one that recommended the mirrored hard drive and external hard drive backup. Actually, he put my operating system on one hard drive (the C drive, not a virtual drive, but an actual hard drive), and installed a mirrored D drive also. John Stevens, EA
Stevens Tax & Accounting, Inc., dba Equi-Tax1870 - 50th St. E., Suite 8 , Inver Grove Heights MN 55077
651-773-5000
FAX 651-457-4529
equitax@unique-software. com
www.equitax.net
From:
[mailto: taxchat@yahoogroups .com ] On Behalf Of Mel Wolfson taxchat@yahoogroups .com
Sent: 11/20/2008 11:55 AM
To:taxchat@yahoogroups .com
Subject: RE: [taxchat] Great Backup SystemI looked up GoVault. It seems to be a removable hard disk cartridge. The two places where there might be a concern, not saying how great a concern that might be because I don't know are, that the cartridge could fail or that the docking system goes on you. Hard disks do fail. Should that happen while all is working properly, you could insert a new cartridge and make a clean backup of everything. If the dock goes, you might lose the data along with the dock.
This is all speculation of course. I don't trust any one backup system. Perhaps I'm paranoid. My brother-in-law lost his entire office in a flood. Since the data was backed up, he was able to restore. (This happened twice during a single tax season.) If he had been relying entirely on GoVault, I can't say whether his situation would have been better or worse. Do you know whether they guarantee that if you have to replace the dock (or whatever they call the system into which the cartridges are inserted), whether the new dock is guaranteed to read the disks created by the old one? As you know, if a hard disk controller goes, the replacement may not be able to read the data from the drive created by the old one.
In the days when people backed up to tape, they maintained several backups. Does GoVault recommend the same with their product.
I'm asklng this not to knock GoVault but because I would seriously consider this as an alternative to what I'm using know which is a combination of USB drives and internet backup. I'd probably keep the internet backup regardless of what the two folks from GearUp say.
From:
[mailto: taxchat@yahoogroups .com ] On Behalf Of John Stevens, Equi-Tax taxchat@ yahoogroups. com
Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 12:36 PM
To:taxchat@yahoogroups .com
Subject: RE: [taxchat] Great Backup SystemMel,
I don’t know technically what type of storage it is, but I asked the rep at Quantum whether I could reproduce all applications and data from the cartridge onto a new hard drive, and he said yes. They use a term called, data deduplication. Here’s from the manual:
“The GoVault data protection software is an archiving/capacity- optimization application designed for use with removable GoVault cartridges. To better optimize the long-term storage of digital content, the GoVault data protection software uses innovative technology to virtually eliminate redundant information stored for a given set of data.
The GoVault data protection software uses a heuristic approach to optimally segment data, and Common Content Factoring™ to uniquely identify each segment and store it only once. For a given version of a set of data, new segments are stored along with metadata used to reconstruct this version from these new segments and possibly other segments stored at earlier points in time.
By factoring out common data, the effective capacity of a GoVault cartridge is significantly increased without loss of functionality and with increased performance of the archiving system. In short, the GoVault data protection software makes long-term disk-based archiving fast, easy, and affordable.”
And from another part of the manual:
“Using Windows System Recovery
The GoVault data protection software is a data protection application, intended to backup and recover your important data files. It is not intended and will not function as a system recovery tool.
Always use the Windows System Recovery utility to restore your computer operating system and installed applications.
Also, after performing an Everything type restore operation, use Windows System Recovery if you encounter any irregularities with you operating system or applications.”
From that I would interpret that if you are trying to restore your operating system from the cartridge, you may also need to restore it from your CD if it doesn’t seem right.
I agree that a multipronged approach is advisable. They do advise doing test restores. They say to replace cartridges after 10 years.
The thing that influenced me more than anything else to try the system is the fact that Rick Oelerich uses it. He’s been in the business for about 35 years, and is very tech savvy.
John Stevens, EA
Stevens Tax & Accounting, Inc., dba Equi-Tax1870 - 50th St. E., Suite 8 , Inver Grove Heights MN 55077
651-773-5000
FAX 651-457-4529
equitax@unique-software. com
www.equitax.net
size=2 width="100%" align=center tabIndex=-1>From:
[mailto: taxchat@yahoogroups .com ] On Behalf Of Mel Wolfson taxchat@yahoogroups .com
Sent: 11/20/2008 10:45 AM
To:taxchat@yahoogroups .com
Subject: RE: [taxchat] Great Backup SystemWhat type of storage does the cartridge use?
My feeling is that you need a multipronged approach. Any one system you're using could be failing and you might not know that this is happening. Did they suggest doing a test restore on a regular interval and replacing the cartridges on a scheduled basis? Both might be prudent if that's the only thing you use.
As for on line backup, I think the security issues are not that great if you upload encrypted data to which only you have the key.
From:
[mailto: taxchat@yahoogroups .com ] On Behalf Of John Stevens, Equi-Tax taxchat@ yahoogroups. com
Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2008 11:25 AM
To:; ' taxchat@yahoogroups .com ' TaxTalk Listserv Members
Subject: [taxchat] Great Backup SystemHello all,
I recently attended the Gear Up Technology seminar. One of the instructors, Rick Oelerich, EA, recommended a system from Quantum called GoVault. He said you can back up your entire hard drive, applications and data. He said the first backup takes awhile, but after that it only takes a few minutes because it only adds new files or changed files. I decided to try it. The first backup took a full 24 hours to get 42 GB. Now it only takes 13 minutes. I do it at the end of the day and take the backup cartridge home. If the computer’s hard drive would fail, I could be up and running very quickly with the backup cartridge, which could be copied to a new hard drive. There are 2 models to the system, an internal dock, or an external dock that plugs into a USB port, and a variety of cartridge sizes, ranging from 40 GB up to 320 GB. I got 2 160 GB cartridges. I also use a mirrored hard drive to give me up-to-the minute backup, but the problem with that is that if the hard drive begins to fail, the mirrored drive will be recording identically.
I was backing up to an external hard drive connected to a USB port. It would back up during the night and take about 2 hours. I would then exchange it with a second drive in the morning, and repeat the process. I like the new system better because I get an immediate backup that I can take off site right away.
Both instructors at the seminar, Carl Heinz, CPA, and Rick Oelerich, EA, did not like backing up online because of security issues. John Stevens, EA
Stevens Tax & Accounting, Inc., dba Equi-Tax1870 - 50th St. E., Suite 8 , Inver Grove Heights MN 55077
651-773-5000
FAX 651-457-4529
equitax@unique-software. com
www.equitax.net
IRS Circular 230 Disclosure: Unless expressly stated otherwise in this transmission, any tax advice contained herein, forwarded with or attached to this message was not and is not intended to be used, nor may it be relied upon or used, by any taxpayer for the purpose of (1) the avoidance of any tax-related penalties under the Internal Revenue Code or applicable state or local tax law provisions, or (2) promoting, marketing or recommending to another party any tax transaction or tax-related matters that may be addressed herein.
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