Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Imported items file size

Hello – This is my first post, I’ve spent a lot of time over the last year watching and reading the valuable information posted. I’m thankful that so many people post their troubles and solutions. Short History… My wife opened her practice in Aug of 07 and she has used Amazing charts from the very beginning.
I read a post where Leslie stated she has almost 22 years of charts scanned and her file is still under 6 GB. I know there are a lot of things that dictate how fast this file grows (file type, the number of things you scan, resolution you use etc…). My concern is this, this is a solo physician practice and our imported file alone is 28GB. Space is not that much of a concern since you can buy it rather cheap; my issue is with the time it takes to back it up. The local backup is ok but if I try to back up everything, including imported items to amazing charts it takes hours and hours.
I wanted to know if other people had the same concerns/troubles and how they might be dealing with this. I would like to slow the rate at which this file grows.
Thanks,

Hi Greg,

Thanks for posting. If you come to the ACUC, I will be giving a talk on just this subject.

First, I want to make sure I understand what you are trying to accomplish. Since you say local is OK, I am assuming you are backing up your Imported Items locally using AC's backup program. That would be doable as I have about 6GB and can, if I wish, back them up in a decent time. But....

You simply CANNOT back up your imported items to the AC offsite backup service. You just don't have the bandwidth. Even with a dedicated T1, you are only getting 1.54Mbs NOT MBs. With a cable company such as Roadrunner, you may be getting 10Mbs down not 10MBs. And, you can't even compare the two. They are apples and oranges, but I digress. They are both fast but remember, with DSL and cable, upload speeds can be a LOT slower than download speeds. BTW, with T1 download and upload is 1.544.

Now, to your issues. The first problem (and this is my opinion only) is you are looking at the little picture of the AC backup tool rather than the big picture of how to do back ups right It can be different when you have an actual server, because those who do, tend to think more in terms of backing up their server nightly.

But, you do indeed have a server even if it isn't an actual one. It is the computer than houses your Amazing Charts databases. First, forget all about the AC backup program. You must have more things on that PC than just SQL Express and AC. Do you not have a billing program and maybe some important Excel spreadsheets? So, this weekend invest in some external hard drives and some good backup software. Server backup software can run upwards to $1,000 or more, but they are worth it. Some of those don't even run on XP or WIN7. But software for regular clients are much cheaper. I would look at some good imaging software such as Acronis. Paragon has gotten better. But, Acronis is the industry standard. These don't do file by file. They actually take an image of your entire computer and back it up to your drive.

By doing this and putting it on a schedule at night, you are backing up the entire computer INCLUDING your imported items and AC databases and SQL Server, etc. Now get at least two, maybe three. I have one for each day of the week, because it is easier to set up that way, but it is a bit of overkill. Because, as you say, hard drive space is cheap, you may have 1TB external drives. Now, Acronis and other software programs will allow you to choose how many backups you can make before it deletes the last one. So, say you have three external drives and you allow it to make 10 backups deep, you then have 30 days of data. Now, you have backups and redundancy. If you have a hard drive crash, you don't want to be looking at that one Seagate drive and hoping it didn't crash as well. Do NOT get one drive and make one backup every night and write over it and over it. This causes two issues. One, that backup could easily be corrupt and two, while you want the latest backup, there are times you need to go back in time. Let's say 25 days ago, someone deleted an entire set of records on a patient. It happens. Now, with every new backup, you are backing up your computer without that file. But, luckily, you can go back and find it. Some people keep backups all the way back to a year or more using special schedules.

But, now that I have written an entire book, to summarize, get some good backup software (not what is on Windows) and set up a backup strategy. Set it and forget it and know you are backed up every night. But, check to see if they are working weekly and test them monthly.

Now, the specific backups such as Amazing Charts or others (like eMedware's billing program has its own) should be run as well. And, I would recommend doing them manually. There are two advantages to using them. First, they contain only the data you need if AC crashes and second, it gives you another backup. Having the offsite is nice, but I wouldn't use it as my only source. Now, you are depending on your side and AC's side. I want to be able to see my data.

If you want your Imported Items offsite, then consider a company that uses rSync technology or something like it such as Jungle Disk. I use them rather than Carbonite and some of the others for a variety of reasons, but it is cheap and has unlimited storage. Basically, once you upload your data, it automatically checks your computer and uploads only what is different. It "mirrors" your data. It doesn't do incremental or differential backups, which I personally deplore, it mirrors it by comparing your computer with what it has. This, again, should be your entire computer although you could do just your Imported Items.

Of course, you should take a drive home at least weekly.

While you can do with file backups what you do with Imaging, the browsing of the files is better with imaging. Basically, every time Acronis images your computer, you have an exact "image" of your computer. You can browse to it and actually go through it like it is your computer or you can mount the image and have the image basically on your computer.

You can also make batch files, but that can be a little difficult if you are not used to making them. Once you learn it's rather simple.

Not sure what you are using for hardware, but if it supports eSata, you should definitely look into eSata drives rather than USB connected. USB2.0 gives you 480Mbs while eSata II gives your 3Gbs.

So, that's a start and a lot of information. Feel free to ask questions or email me. And, there are hundreds of ways to do backups, but just remember, you can't do too many.

Oh, and don't worry about the rate it grows. How can you do that? You can't pick and choose what labs or files to import. You can make sure you don't import images. But, who cares if it is 50MBs or 100GBs. It's data you need.

Wow. Got carried away with that one.

One simple alternative would be to copy and paste the Imported Items folder to another location. That would take a long time as well.

Microsoft makes a free utility called SyncToy which would allow you to automate backing the folder up.

Thanks for all the great information. I’m will start looking for that backup software this morning. I should have given you some information on our set-up but I think you covered it well. I have an hp xw4600 workstation dedicated to AC. I currently back it up nightly with AC (that will change given the info you provided) which creates an additional copy on a WD TB network drive connected to my PC. Every morning I connect a WD USB external drive and copy last night’s back up. I keep this drive in a fire/waterproof box. I like the 30 day backup plan using 3 external drives, I hadn’t thought about someone actually deleting data.
We outsource our billing at the moment so I don’t have that to worry about just yet.
I wish we could attend the ACUC this year but it’s just not possible. Will your presentation be something that I can find through the AC website afterwards?

Email to Indy. Go to the User List at the top of this screen and click on "I" He is going to do it, but the more people who tell him the better.

How long is the fireproof box good for. When I owned a restaurant in the good old days, I had one put in the ground in cement. It cost $1,000 or so, but it was good up to one week or so.

I am sure you will have some good ideas as well. I was just about to ask about your setup.

If you wish you can email me with questions. Most of these backup programs have trials AND you can run more than one on a machine. One backs up at 1AM and the other at 5AM.

The one problem you want is, "wow, I need a backup file. Which one do I use." That's a good problem to have.