Automated Backup and Restore
As of Version 6, all versions of CatBase include a comprehensive automated backup and restore utility. Make use of this feature to ensure that you never lose any data if your computer crashes or your database gets corrupted!
There are various things that can go wrong with the files on your computer: the hard disk may have damaged sectors or – even worse – it may fail completely. Power surges, "brown-outs" and power cuts can wreak havoc with electronic data.And then of course are the user-generated problems: perhaps you accidentally deleted a vital database file, or deleted all the records from a database by mistake. The automated backup and restore utility can rescue you from these problems!
The following brief Tutorial discusses the most important features of the Backup utility; a more detailed explanation can be found in the Reference Manual, Chapter Nine - Utilities, which you can download from here.
An Overview of the Backup and Restore Utility
This utility enables you to:
- Choose a location to save the backup files
- Set up a backup schedule – for example, make a fresh backup every night at midnight
- Specify which files will be backed up
- Specify whether to maintain an ongoing log file, or not
- Specify what to do if the database is damaged
Setting your Backup Preferences
- At the CatBase main window, choose Backup from the File menu,
or click on the Utilities button and choose Backup from the popup menu.
- The Backup Preferences window opens:
Backup File Destination Folder
This is probably the most important setting for your backup preferences. In the illustration shown here, the file path is shown as "/". This means that the backups will be saved into the same folder as the CatBase program, which may very well be the same folder as your data file. This is not good! The backups should be saved onto a separate volume – an external drive or a networked volume. If your computer's hard drive was to crash (and it does happen!), you would, quite likely, lose everything on it. So your backups must be made onto another drive. We recommend creating a Backups folder on another drive or networked volume for this purpose. Then click on the Browse button and select that folder.
Note: You must make sure that the selected volume will be available to your computer at all times!
Log Management
If you select the Use log file check box, the program will maintain a log of every modification that's made to the database. If there's a problem with the database subsequently, and you need to restore a backup, it can apply the log file to the last full backup so that you lose very little data (you may lose the record you were working on at the time the problem occurred). We recommend using this option.
Scheduler
Click on the Scheduler button to set a backup schedule.
The Scheduler makes a full backup of the database according to the specified schedule. If you are using your database on a daily basis, we recommend making a daily backup. If the program isn't running at the specified time, the backup will be made the next time it is opened.
Backup
The Backup tab lets you choose some additional options:
Keep only the last n backup files
CatBase creates a new, numbered backup file at the scheduled backup time. So that you don;t end up with dozens of disk-space-gobbliing backup files, you can tell it how many backups to keep. The default setting is 3, meaning that if there are already three backup files, then the oldest will be deleted before or after the new backup is made (depending on your selection).
If active transactions or index operations
Transactions are groups of activity in the database. For example, when you create anew record, a new transaction is started, and it stays active until you either save or cancel the If you select Always wait for the end of transactions, the program may not be able to make the backup if there are windows open. The safest choice is to select this option and always make sure that you close all windows before leaving the office each day.
Archive
You only need to be concerned with this option if you have a large database (over 1Gb). See the Reference Manual (Chapter 9) for more details.
Restore
The Restore tab lets you determine what to do if there's a problem with the database:
We suggest leaving all these options selected. If your database becomes damaged, the program will automatically restore it the next time you start up the program.
Click the Save button when you've reviewed the options and made any necessary changes. You'll then be asked if you want to make a new backup; if you have just selected a new backup location, then you should make a new backup now.
What's Next?
