A New Holiday Tradition: Verifying the Restorability of Your Backups

For me, the holidays are a great time to do everything I otherwise never seem to have time to do: change the batteries in my smoke detectors, clean out the attic, that kind of thing.

This year I’m adding something new to my downtime to-do list: making sure all of my backups are restorable.

Of course I use Spanning Backup to back up my personal and work Gmail, Google Drive, Calendars, Contacts, and Sites. But backups are useless unless you can easily restore from them, and that’s not something people pay enough attention to. (In fact, it’s not something other backup vendors pay enough attention to either.)

If you’re not already backing up you Google Workspace data, start now—right now. Spanning Backup takes about 3 minutes to set up, and is free for 14 days. You can get everything backed up at no cost and with no obligation.

If you’re already backing up your Google Workspace data (good on you!) run this simple test:

1. Identify one folder in your Google Drive and restore it from your most recent backup
2. Restore all of the email messages you received in the past week
3. Pick one calendar from Google Calendar and restore it to how it was on Christmas Day
4. Choose one contact group and restore it to how it was on Boxing Day (December 26)
5. Select a section of one of your Google Sites and restore it to how it was yesterday

This whole process should take about 5 minutes, assuming you’re using Spanning Backup. (If you’re using Backupify, well, good luck. It doesn’t do any of these things.)

That’s it! You’re good until this time next year, when you can once again eat leftovers, watch football, and test your backups’ restorability. Happy holidays!