Warning: Don't forget about backups!

Any databases, letters, spreadsheets, pictures, whatever, that you care about should be backed up from time to time!

ChaosHost offers you a few easy ways to make certain you are protected, not only from crashes or outages, but also from user errors or decisions (which can be even more likely to happen if you share your data with others!)

There are two ways to keep your own copy of the data separate from what is live and in use at ChaosHost.com:

  1. Keep your data synchronized with Time & Chaos or Chaos Intellect on your local pc.
      
    Every time you sync from the File menu's Web Synchronization or Cloud Synchronization option, you make certain that your pc has a copy of what ChaosHost has and that ChaosHost has what your pc has.
      
  2. Download backups from ChaosHost.com directly.
      
    When you are logged in to your data on ChaosHost.com from a computer (not the mobile version), there is a File menu at the top with a "Backup Data" option. The popup window will let you download .BAK files for any of our online databases and will also tell you how long it has been since someone last downloaded a backup of that database from ChaosHost.com.


Special note on backups from Bill in Chaos Software's tech support:

"Personally, I keep my data on ChaosHost synchronized with my Chaos Intellect on my machine, and then I use the backup option in Chaos Intellect to take "snapshots" of my data on any given day. Every time I do a backup in Chaos Intellect (which works the same way in Time & Chaos), I make sure the option to "Keep Older Backups" is enabled. If you don't see this option, download a newer version as I find this option to be very important!

"These backups are small, so they don't take up much room, BUT by doing this little bit of extra work to backup regularly, along with keeping the older backups, I have backups I can find going back days, weeks or months. If I delete something or mess something up, but don't notice it for awhile, it is sure is nice to have the extra safety net of grandfathered backups to rely on!

"The newer versions of Intellect and T&C that have the Keep Older Backups option also have an Advanced Data Backup Explorer on the File menu that allow you to go through older backup files, find an item you want back and then restore just that selected item back to my current database."

 

This help article applies to ChaosHost, a cloud database service for users of Chaos Intellect, Time & Chaos, and Chaos Free