Home Forums Discussions Problems imported items too large for AC automatic backup

When I first started with AC the scanner that I used to fax in all patients' insurance info., medical hx form, etc. was saved as a .tif file. As I've added more and more patients the imported items folder has gotten larger and is now at 32gb! I realize the problem is with the large .tif files that I have and the scanner that I have now saves files as much smaller pdfs. My question for you computer gurus is if you know of a quick and easy way to compress my .tif files or batch convert them to jpg or pdf. My concern with converting them is that everything that has been imported into AC is tagged as a tif. If I convert things they will be renamed as .jpg or .pdf and the link between the chart and imported file folder will be broken. In other words, the chart will still be looking to the imported items folder for a file with a .tif name.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can scale down the size of the imported items folder without having to rescan everything?

Thank you in advance

Adobe Acrobat Professional and a number of shareware PDF converters can be set up to batch convert TIFFs to PDFs. The devil is always in the details, of course, since you have to manually designate the source and destination folders, names, etc. I'd expect a significant amount of time involved in converting 32GB of files.

Your point about renaming .tif --> .pdf is valid. I went into AC's Imported Items folder and used Word to convert a file from a .doc to a .pdf file. It won't show up in the patient's Imported Items file list, even though double clicking it will open it up from the folder within AC.

My question is, why bother? Big hard drives, even in RAID configurations, are cheap. Just back up the Imported Items to local drives(s), and set up AC's backup to skip the Imported Items when you back up AC's databases.

Thanks for the reply John. I've already started looking into an external hard drive and that might end up being my best solution.

I asked the question just because I wanted to have the imported items saved somewhere other than a local drive. I know there are online storage sites out there but the few that I looked at were pretty pricey for 30+ GB of storage for the year. And since I've already paid for AC's backup service, I just wanted to see if there was a way I could take full advantage of it. It's so nice being able to set the automatic backup feature and having it upload every night...

dermdoc,

A few things. That is a lot of space even with TIFFs. And, TIFFs aren't always larger than PDFs, it depends on what you are using both for and compression, et. al. I would definitely recommend pdfs.

I have no idea why, but I have spent at least the last three hours looking for a way to solve your problem, although I am not sure it will work on a big scale. Part of that was because the software I found is one of those tease download for free software that is not only limited in how many times you can use it, but also limited at the point of actually using it. I am sure there are other programs that are more expensive and, in my way of crazy thinking therefore better. But, anyway:

http://www.verypdf.com/tif2pdf/tif2pdf.htm#dl

This program states it willconvert tif to pdf and pdf to tif and lots of tifs to one pdf and lots of tifs to lots of corresponding pdfs AND EVEN directories of tifs to directories of pdfs. But, when it was about to convert, it wanted me to put quarters in the slot. So, if you want to try it, I will let you give it a shot. I must admit I damn near paid for it just to try it out.

OK, so say you go to the folder of patient 1000 and there are 30 tif files there. And say this software or another allows you to convert all of them to pdfs. You then have the problem that the links are gone. Well, here is the fun part. You open Administrative Options and go to the 3rd button from the bottom on the left. I simply went top to bottom. Step 1 through Step 3. It even gives you a report. Then try as you may, all of the pdfs are there, but they are not signed off, and you can't sign them off. Except, you can if you use the Sign-Off Imports button just under the Missing Imports Utility.

Caveat: I tried this on two files, and it worked beautifully. Whether or not it would work with 25GBs of data, I don't know. I guess I would try on one folder at a time and, if it did, you could just move along down the row.

There is also this nifty little site I found that has sample tiffs for download. Don't ask me why I found it or used it, but it was a near experiment for downloading the tiffs and then converting them to pdfs to see the size difference. For anyone bored, the marbles tiff is pretty cool and would make great wallpaper. The pediatric patients would wonder why the marbles are sticking to your monitor and not falling off, but they grab the monitor enough as it is

http://www.fileformat.info/format/tiff/sample/index.htm

As to uploading the Imported Items to AC, I am not sure it would be such a good idea. That is an awful lot of data to send nightly to AC server world. I know they used to save by size, but now I think they keep 30 days, and I am sure your allotment would expire. If you upload to a place like Mozy, you would be able to just send the new stuff which would make much more sense. I have a separate backup for the Imported Items and it backs up with the server, but it seems it would make more sense to back it up to the external hard drive. Either way, you could back it up locally with AC. If you use an eSATA connection and back up to a 1 or 2 Terabyte Satadrive, you will get 3GB/s transfer speed, of course which doesn't translate that way in the real world. You certainly wouldn't back it up in ten minutes, but it would be the fastest way other than hard drive to hard drive within the computer and even that is dependent on SATA cables and some other bottlenecks. I backup to SATA2, and it is blazing fast.

Another option on top of backing up locally or online depending on your server would be to use something like a Mirra Backup where it backs up constantly. While you may get a performance hit on your AC if it backed up all files, if it only backed up imported items, you would probably be OK. www.mirra.com which is now owned by Seagate.

I still don't get where you got all that data unless you are taking digital photographs of your patients. At this site, I have been here three years and only have 6GBs of data, although this is purely PDFs. All of your pictures and signatures go to the Data001 folder.

Good luck. Nice to have you aboard.

Thanks Bert. I really appreciate the time you put into your response!

The reason why my imported items folder is so large is because as a dermatology practice we're taking digital pics of almost all patients, sometimes multiple on each visit.

Thanks again for your thoughts!

I just checked out Mozy and didn't realize how affordable it was. I don't remember the sites that I'd checked out last week but I remember one was going to be $300+ for backup for the year. I figured I'd already paid $250 to AC so I wanted to backup there. Thanks for the tip about Mozy. For those of you who use it are you using MozyPro or MozyHome?

MozyPro here.

Leslie

Mozypro here too. I have even restored it twice to make sure it works. I also backup to Amazon S3

Lstrouse and Nephron,

Are you backing up just imported items or all of Amazing Charts to MozyPro? If all of AC, which files are you setting to backup? Since v4 I've been backing up with AC's Automatic Backup and haven't had to think about which files I need to restore my whole system. I remember with v3 there was a core of 6 .mdb files that were necessary for restore.

Thanks

I am cheap so I did not purchase a huge amount of GB at MozeyPro. I also back up my PM program to Mozey. Consequenly, I do not back up imported items there. And because backing up imported items in AC means I have to delete the backup from the day before or suffer a "low memory" error message, I do not back them up there either. Consequently, my imported items are only backed up to my tape drive. This is not ideal and I wish it were different.

Leslie

There should be a simple, fool proof way to back up everything, imported items included, built-in in amazing chart. I know there are ways to work around it, but eventually something will happen.

My understanding is that the backup does not include imported items. Is that new with v4?

The AC auto backup will include the imported items, unless you click a box telling the program to exclude them. I don't remember if that's something new with v4 or not.

I wish the AC auto backup had a way of just saving the new info. Then there wouldn't be such a problem of uploading such large files every time. That would be a GREAT improvement in the backup program. I have to be honest, as much as I love AC, if I'd known that backing up my imported items would be such a problem, I would have just gone with something like MozyPro.

OK, time to set things straight. Mainly to help but also because Jon is not getting a fair deal.

In all versions (at least V3 and V4), you could back up the program including imported items and the databases. You could only backup to the AC servers so the imported items were not a great choice. The databases were ALWAYS encrypted and backed up to a local drive and THEN backed up via an encrypted path to the AC servers. Given that I, as a solo practitioner, had around 50MBs of data in two years, I didn't have to worry about space or time (the Einstein principle) doing offsite backups. But, I chose not back up the imported items over the net BECAUSE it would take way too long. So, I backed them up locally.

Now with V4, as with V3 in some ways, you have the ability to back up EVERYTHING you need to restore the system.

Let's talk V4 and that is what is pretty much on the table now.

With V4, you can choose three back up paths +/- offsite backup. The backup software automatically backs up your data to a folder in the AC folder called "Backup." so, in effect, you could be backing up your data in five different places. All backups will contain the same things. Your backup will contain the following:

AmazingCharts.mdf
AmazingCharts.ldf
Meds.mdf
Meds.ldf
Codes.mdf
Codes.ldf
Imported Items (If you selected it)
_Data001 (If you selected it -- all images you import into AC)

These six to eight files are the backups and, of course, with these, you can recreate your entire AC. As the userdic.tlx which contains your spellchecker add-ons is not used in the server database (if you aren't using that computer and losing some new words isn't that horrible), it is not backed up.

When you restore, the program will restore to the folder that contains the database path, whether it is the AC folder or just the databases. The restore will restore all of the files you backed up above plus a zip folder containing AmazingCharts.bak, your Imported Items and your _Data001 folder. It will also create an AmazingCharts.bak file which will reside outside of the zip folder. This is made as part of the backup as the original in case of a problem with the backup.

There software programs out there which are designed to back up SQL Databases online (meaning while they are still connected to a SQL Server engine. In the past, one could copy and paste a folder anywhere, but this is asking for trouble with SQL, and there is little doubt that if this were your backup choice, you would run into corruption and loss of data.

As I was saying, there are programs out there that can be costly that will back up SQL Server databases as part of the backup of the server and of just the SQL instances, which are beyond the scope of this discussion.

Jon's Amazing Backup software allows one to back up while the databases are connected insuring you will not have data loss or corruption by essentially stopping services and restarting services (would be my best guess on how).

Now, there seem to be two big questions which continue to come up in this thread. The ability to back up EVERYTHING including imported items, and the ability to do incremental, differential and full backups, full backups being the only option at this point.

To talk about the first, one has to look at the priorities of imported items vs all of your patient data. Sure, losing your imported items would be devastating, but I think losing the three databases would be more so. Also in this equation is the fact that the imported items increase exponentially while your data in AC increases just a little at a time. My "imported items" which I don't use, but I have the same in a different place is 7GB. I would not try to back that up online any day. And for bigger practices, it would be much bigger. My imported items are backed up in about four places locally and not by AC.

Now as to incremental and differential backups (I would never do incremental -- differential is OK -- especially over the net), I can't pretend to know how difficult this is. I know that most commercial software backup programs, even inexpensive ones, have that ability. But, I think it is asking Jon a lot to make a backup program and is not only capable of backing up SQL but also can do incremental and differential. Plus and not to get in trouble with newbies, we are already having issues with everyone's understanding of this backup, much less having to understand SQL and incremental/differential backups.

Personally, I think Jon made it too confusing with having three options for paths along with a backup to the AC folder and then options for backing up Imported Items, etc. Especially, since there was not even a backup program before.

I also think that while Jon has offered a lot, he has created this thread because of offering offsite backup (WITH ONE CLICK) and allowed backups of the Imported Items.

Here is the way I would look at it and would recommend using AC backup. And, THIS IS NOT BERT'S WAY, it is the only way. GIVE UP ON BACKING UP IMPORTED ITEMS OFFSITE. And.....DO NOT THEN CONDEMN THE BACKUP PROGRAM BECAUSE IT WON'T BACK UP EVERYTHING.

Your imported items are huge and, as such, should be backed up locally at 480MB/s to 800MBs instead of 1MB/s. Just back them up with the whole chart somewhere and be done with it. What is the fascination with backing up Imported Items with the databases or offline. Sure, it would be nice, but it just isn't feasible. (On that note, backing up including Imported Items locally along with your other backup of AC is very doable).

To answer a couple of questions above: No matter how you set AC backup, it will restore your system EXCEPT for Imported Items unless you select that. Yes, it does include Imported Items.

Leslie, I still don't know what is going on with your memory thing and may have to remote in to see what is happening.

I should point out that while the AC backup is just icing on the cake to my backups, I have done extensive trial backups and restore on Virtual Machine albeit in WIN7, and it works perfectly. But, again, it should not be your only backup.

Having said all of the above, one thing I am thinking about doing and can then get back to everyone (hell, I probably will just so I can) is using rSync backup. I am not completely sure how to use the rSync protocol with other third party programs, but it is already set up in Backup Assist. Given that Leslie already has V5 of BA, I would highly recommend she at least look into it. There are many offsite storage which would work with it, I haven't checked them all out. Mozy may. I do know that AmazonS3 has many, many options and seems to be extremely inexpensive. I will leave two websites, and even though it looks a bit complicated, it really does give you the best of both worlds on differential and full backups over the Internet.

http://aws.amazon.com/s3/#pricing

http://www.backupassist.com/SBS/documents/4_Rsync.pdf

http://www.backupassist.com/rsync/Setting_up_Rsync_Server.pdf

http://www.backupassist.com/downloads/factsheets/factsheet-internetbackup_web.pdf

Please read and take as is, as I cannot guarantee that everything I am saying is 100% right. It's pretty close, though, lol.

http://everydaysimplicity.blogspot.com/2008/07/computer-crash-1-mozypro-remote-backup.html

This is a must read for all those using Mozy or MozyPro. Very interesting. Of course, one should always check their backups and whether or not they are there and working.

It also gives a great site: www.backupreview.com

May want to look at it.

I AM NOT CONDEMNING AC BACKUP and DEFINITELY DIDN'T MEAN TO RUFFLY ANY FEATHERS WITH MY INITIAL QUESTION. I was trying to get insight into how I can modify my records so that I could have an easier time saving everything to AC backup. If that's not possible, now I know, and I'll save things in different locations. It's been helpful to hear how other do it.

The vast majority of practices will not be as "imported items" heavy as mine is so this is probably not even an issue for most. AC backup isn't one click backup of everything like I thought it would be when I initially purchased so that's why I said that if I knew then what I know now, I'd go with something different.

I should add that I am not a computer pro by any means so I didn't realize before this thread that wanting imported items to backup with the rest of my chart was a difficult thing to do. I thought that because my imported items are so large, I just needed to modify my files and then I'd be able to backup everything like everyone else with AC backup does. Again, I appreciate hearing how others do it and now I'll look at backing up my imported items to another location.

Thanks again.

Whoa!!! I never said that you, dermdoc, condemned the program. My thread, which by the way took a lot of time and work and if I may be self-serving I think is very helpful, was an attempt to try to put together information that would answer everyone's questions.

It was evident to me, if I read all the posts correctly, that the AC backup program was deficient in many ways. When looked at in a certain light, I think it may make it clear to some that is does, indeed, do everything a good backup program should do.

You did not ruffle any feathers. But, when I see a lot of posts that I feel TOGETHER may be off the mark, I think it is helpful to comment on that. I thought my post did just that.

As I have stated many times (and users can choose to do it or not), but the key backup should be of the entire main computer or at least all of its data, and AC's backup should supplement that. Obviously, people have been doing that for years as until V4 there was no backup.

My main point is that the servers that Jon uses to back up software and the amount of data people will back up in Imported Items makes offsite backup impractical for most.

dermdoc,

I don't think it's a matter of your large picture files being too big to use the imported item backup feature makes you different than everyone else. I think everyone must decide if they are going to back up their imported items with AC's backup.

Well, Bert, do not have a stroke but I agree with dermdoc (wish I knew his given name). My imported items are very important to me and it would be catastrophic if I lost them. It would indeed be ideal if the automatic AC backup feature would indeed compress files enough so that doing a daily entire backup would be feasible. Then one could automatically back up all of AC to all of those different sites you denoted with just a single click. Right now BackupAssist backs up all of my AC and my PM and my received faxes as well as other critical folders to my tape drive. That requires one set up. Then AC requires another set-up and Mozey yet another. Even when AC has a PM module and I make the change, it will still require at least two different set-ups unless the backup feature is changed. Currently, my PM program zips the data files upon command. Unfortunately, it does not do this automatically every night. I have to manually compress every day and then let Backup Assist and Mozey pick up those files when they do run automatically. T'would be nice it all of the programs could do both automatically.

Leslie

The AC Backup will compress the file. But, not even $1,000 backup programs can compress 30GB files especially PDFs and JPEGS, which are already highly compressed. I just backed up 20GBs in under 10 minutes to three different locations. I am not quite sure why ACBU should be able to compress huge amounts of data. It can, but if it is a lot of data, it takes a lot of time to back up. That is just the long and short of it.

I am also at a loss as to why one would want to back up to multiple locations at the same time.

There you go. Why do you even need AC's backup if you are backing everything else anywhere. You are referring to just one click, but do you expect AC's backup program to back up your entire server? Of course not. So, we all have to do multiple clicks and backups if we want to do modular backups such as AC. I do two auto backups a night of my server, but I still do the quick AC backup of my data minutes the imported items. But, what is lost in all my ranting, is that if you are backing up locally, you CAN back up imported items.

The thing is it is nice to have multiple backups of your databases as they can become corrupted or have other issues given the complexity of SQL server. Your imported items are pictures and PDFs and Tiffs. They can be backed up by copy and paste.

Leslie, are you zipping all of your files on your server, etc.? I am confused. And, yes, when a PM program comes out, AC will not be able to back everything up. My eMedware program has its own built in backup program, but it only backs up eMedware.

I have pestered Jone for years to make his backup do what it now does - make it do offsite like it always has, but make it automatic and allow you to send it to your own drive. It works great for me - I send one copy to the desktop every day so I can copy it to a thumb drive or whatever, it also backs up to a network attached storage device. I guess the question is will any file compress data down to a small enough file to make it fast - I think a dermatology office uses a relatively high resolution picture and saves it to the computer - I guess the problem is how many megabytes the pictures are taking up. I have used AC for all office notes since 2002 and for everything for the last 2 years and my compressed file that AC Backup does is around 5 gb. Pictures just take a lot of space.

AC backup seems to work really well for AC.
I really love the newest version of auto backup.

Bert,
I am only zipping my PM program and that is done automatically by the program's back up feature. And, no, I would not expect AC to back up all of my server. But I would expect AC to back up all of AC, including the imported items, in a compressed form.

Leslie

Just a note to thank all of you for the above discussions and suggestions. I am new to AC (6 weeks) and still have less than 1 GB in my total backup file with all the imports. Before now I did not understand the problem with imported data for the AC offsite backup, so when it took 2 hrs a couple days ago to send it to AC, I thought it was a "bug". Now I know it is a systemic issue, and I can now plan on how to work around it.
Since new users of AC offsite backup may have similar issues, a heads up to them from AC may be useful.

If you watch the ACBU, it compresses the first thing. You can only compress so much. And, as stated, since most people use PDFs, they are already fairly compressed. Plus, compression takes more time.

So, again, lol it does back up the whole AC program It easily backs up your imported items and the system databases.

Interesting discussions. I stopped using Backup Assist for my AC backups when the ACBU was available w/ V4. Since I didn't have the SQL plug-in for BackupAssist, I knew it would not backup properly. Therefore I'm using ACBU and it is working fine for me.

My imported Items folder is over 40 GB, and I've elected to back it up separately once per week to a external hard drive (even that takes quite a while, many minutes). Trying to send 40GB over the internet takes time, no question about that, so I do not use the OffSite Backup for Imported Items however I do use it for the other components of AC.

.PDF's are highly compressed as they stand, therefore trying to compress them further does not yield a lot more space but takes moretime. It's really not time efficient to try compressing PDF files. Therefore I don't bother.

Sorry I haven't properly introduced myself. I'm a she, a dermatologist in Athens, GA.

My pics are a crucial part of my charting. I can't afford to lose them and so I want to back them up in as safe a place as possible, as easily as possible, as frequently as possible.

Bert, you've made it clear that one click backup of the entire chart (and imported items are indeed an important part of the chart)is not possible with AC Backup. I think most of us understand that with the affordability that we enjoy with AC we trade off some of the slick features of the more expensive programs. But this limitation can be relatively significant depending on how you practice and good to know about when making a decision about purchasing AC Backup.


S. Sexton
Sexton Dermatology
Athens, GA

OK, I will try again. Please forgive me if this is driving me crazy, lol.

First, compression. Compression is either lossless or lossy. The latter only being used for types of graphics, audio or video. It is highly compressible because it loses data that is not regained. Lossless is what is used for data. It compresses less.
Zipping software such as Winzip, PKZIP, and the compression program in ACBU all use certain algorithms and methods to compress their data. 7-zip is one of the standards that can compress at a high level. Compression many times is not compatible with tape backup and will not always allow appending of data such as incremental and differential backups.

While zipping or compressing a file obviously makes it smaller it also allows uploading multiple files easier. If you have plenty of room on your backup device, compression takes longer and may not be necessary.

Encryption on the other hand is just that. It encrypts files so they can only be opened by those who made them, hopefully. It's really not important to encrypt files saved locally for obvious reasons. But, files going over the Internet should be encrypted. Both compression and encryption take time. Compression is generally done prior to encryption.

The type of file makes a big difference. A 3MB PDF may get compressed to 2.3MBs whereas a 7MB bitmap file will get compressed to 234KBs.

There are also other variables to consider. How long it takes to compress and encrypt depends on disk speed, processor speed and even RAM.

Using Backup Assist, a backup program which utilizes Microsoft's ntBackup is an extremely good backup program that can cost anywhere from $295 to over $1,000 depending on add-ons. Backing up the AC folder which had 22GB of data to the local drive took 13 minutes and compressed it to 17GBs. In contrast using ACBU to back up 4.7GB (sorry for the different sizes) to the desktop took 13 minutes and compressed to 3.9GBs. I would expect Backup Assist or any commercial backup program to have a more robust backup engine and perform better. But, the backup to the local drive is where it stops as far as the point here.

First, to clarify, ACBU DOES back up, compress and encrypt EVERYTHING needed to get back in business. That means IMPORTED ITEMS and the databases. Again, it does back up imported items if you want it to. And, no matter how big your Imported Items are, you can rest assured that while you sleep, ACBU will have plenty of time to put ALL of your needed files on the local or external or tape drive of your choice.

Now, can we all forget about ACBU and all backup programs for a second. Let's just say that we want to upload a file using FTP or another method to a server on the Internet. Let's say this file is 1.2GB. Now, you can compress it with any compression software you wish, but you probably won't get it any smaller than 1GB unless it is all bitmaps. OK, so we have 1GB. And, let's say your Time-Warner cable gives you 1Mb/s. That's a pretty good upload speed.

This will take 2 hours and 15 minutes.

A 4GB files will then take 9 hours.

So DocLon's statement that it took nearly two hours to upload nearly 1GB makes perfect sense. I would guess his upload speed is around 950KB/s.

There is no "bug" in the system. It is doing exactly what it is supposed to do. You can go to any number of backup offsite programs such as Mozy or Carbonite.com, etc.

Just for fun, I uploaded exactly 1GB of compressed data (1GB = 1GB whether it is compressed or not) to www.box.com. I had a 1Mb/s connection speed and was able to upload it in exactly one and one-half hours. Why faster than the predicted. Probably due to fluctuating upload speed.

So, that is my point. Upload your Imported Items anyway you want offsite. It is going to take you a lot of time over an Internet connection. There just isn't that much bandwidth. So, ACBU has to

1. Shut down SQL server and find files
2. Compress files
3. Encrypt files
4. Upload the compressed and encrypted file

So, yes, ACBU will back up databases and/or images and/or imported items locally rather quickly (depending on size).

And, yes, ACBU will back up databases and/or images and/or imported items offsite rather slowly (depending on size).

I wish Paul were here to at least jump for glee that there is an actual backup program.

What I don't understand is before V4 we had V3 with ONLY offsite backup. And, of course, to upload a file you have to make it first so there was that benefit of having a compressed encrypted file (just like now) in the AC folder or sometimes located elsewhere. It was the exact same thing except for images. You could back up the databases offsite (took about three minutes) or you could back up both the databases and your imported items (took about one or two or three hours depending on the size of your imported items again. But, no one complained about how long it took to do an offsite backup. I guess this was because it cost $250 a year and no one did it or very few. It seems like only yesterday everyone was backing up their entire program to a flash drive and taking it home in his or her pocket.

Anyway, if anyone wants to check their upload speed at dslreports.com and give me the size of their backup including the imported items, I would be glad to calculate how much time it will take. But, I still don't see why everyone wants to backup offsite.


I have never said, much less made it clear, that one click backup of the entire chart is not possible. It is completely possible. In fact that is what it does. Not sure where you are getting that from. It is possible to back it up with one click locally, and it is possible to back it up with one click offsite. It's just that you have to know that 1GB is going to take from 1.5 to 2 hours and 20GB is going to take 20 times that long or over a day. But, that would be true with ANY backup program. And, if what you are saying is that it only backs up the databases, _001Folder, and .xml file along with imported items, well that is all you need. But, if you really want it to back up ALL the files, then copy and paste the rest into a folder and put it in the ImportItems folder. It will then get backed up. But, that is not necessary.

There is nothing that AmazingCharts.com needs to tell anyone before they buy. There is nothing about this backup program that should make anyone wish to look at other programs.

I am really trying to be helpful here. That is why I am spending at least two hours timing and testing backups and writing this.

Maybe I am missing the point. That may very well be. If so, I am truly sorry and am certainly willing to listen to what I am missing. Until then, happy backups.

Well that is what I took it to mean from one of your earlier replies.

My original question was about one click offsite backup and the problems that I was having because of my large imported items folder. Whether that's "feasible" or not, it's OK. I've found a way to back up that's working for me for right now.

I appreciate the time that everyone has put into answering questions on the user board, particularly the lengthy responses that you've given to this one Bert. It's OK. I'm not trying to down the program.

I actually think this thread has helped to better define the functionality of ACBU for those of us who don't have any experience in backing up a large program or system. Hearing about the limitations of ACBU, and backup programs in general, has been helpful. AC is great! but it can't be everything to everyone.

Thanks Dr. Sexton,

While I can see how this would be easily taken to mean that one-click backup isn't possible, my intent was to ask why were users so set on backing up everything OFFLINE given it is really not feasible.

Now, an offsite backup company like Carbonite can be set to do a complete backup of your AC or imported items and then only back up the new files. That would be more preferable I would think.

Hi,
I unsubscribed from OBU because my Imported Items were too large. Instead, I have been separately backing up the Imported Items Folder to a flash drive and using the back up utility to back up AC to the same drive. I save a ".enc" file.
In the event that I would need to do an emergency restore, how can I do this using this .enc file when Amazing utilities will only restore from a ".bak" file?

Thanks for any advise

Hi bisaya,

Well, I am glad someone realizes imported items are too big to go over the net.

I believe you have it backwards. Amazing Utilities will only restore from a .enc file. All the information is there in both, but in order to restore from a pure .bak file (which is basically a backup of a SQL database), you will need to know the syntax to move it to where it needs to go and to change it back to its .mdf and .ldf formats.

The .enc files are the default backup files of your main databases which are made by the backup program. .enc is just the extension for encrypted files. The backup program takes your databases and compresses them first and then encrypts them. You restore them using the restore program, which will look for and find only .enc files.

These are very safe and will quickly restore and overwrite your old databases. You will get a warning about this first. I wouldn't blindly restore without first backing up what you already have and detaching the databases and moving them. But, that is not completely necessary.

If you change the .bak file to a text file (change .bak to .txt) and scroll through the thousands of characters, you will see your data albeit not in an easy to read format.

Also, if you use Amazing Utilities to optimize your database, it will automatically make a new .bak file in your Backup folder inside the AC folder.

I am glad you are backing up both your imported items and your .enc file to a flash drive, but please make sure it is not your only backup. And, you would be better off purchasing two or three large external backups (either USB2.0 or eSATA -- much faster) and backing up your entire computer along with these backups then trusting your entire office and data files to one flash drive.

Hope this helps. Bottom line is don't worry about the .bak files. Just worry about your .enc files.

you're absolutely right

Thanks Bert,