Test your backup, how often and how?
Untested backup is no backup. The SMB norm is at minimum a quarterly real restore test plus a yearly full disaster-recovery drill. Half a day per quarter, worth it.
Try this first
- 1Quarterly test (small): pick a random folder from last month and restore it to another location. Works? Good. Doesnt? You want to find that out now, not in disaster.
- 2Half-yearly test (medium): restore a whole mailbox or NAS share to a test environment. Open files, check integrity. Document how long it took.
- 3Yearly drill (large): simulate a real disaster. Whole file server gone, whole M365 tenant ransomed, whole NAS encrypted. Walk the entire restore workflow, escalation and comms included. Not in production, in a test tenant or env.
- 4Document everything: who did it, how long, errors hit, what you changed. Evidence for insurer, customers, NIS2 audit.
- 5Schedule them in the calendar, not ad hoc. Otherwise it never happens and you assume backup works until you need it.
When to bring us in
A yearly disaster-recovery drill we lead as external party. We design scenarios, log response times, deliver a report for leadership and insurer. Ask us.
See also
- We have backups but we do not know if they workA backup that cannot be restored is not a backup. Testing matters as much as taking the backup.
- Suspected ransomware: what to do RIGHT NOWThe first 30 minutes are critical. One wrong move spreads the damage. Read before acting.
- Someone accidentally deleted an important folderUsually fine to recover. The trick: do not save anything new on that drive until you know how.
None of the above fits?
Describe your situation below. We pass your input plus the steps you already saw to our AI and return tailored next-step advice. If it's too risky to DIY, we'll say so.
Or skip the DIY entirely
Our Managed IT clients do not look these things up. One point of contact, a fixed monthly price, resolved within working hours.