best way to backup?

[Guest]

Hello

We have access databases going out to the field on laptops-- they will be
run by teams in the field, separate from each other, and with limited
supervision from us. What is the best way to have each field team back up
their data? We'd like to have them do it every day (to prevent unwanted
changes or losses during data entry).

When we were using excel for this, we'd have them just copy the excel file
daily before that day's data entry into a 'backup' folder. Is this
recommended in access? We're concerned that the db will grow so big, that
saving the entire thing over and over again will require more space than we
can spare on these laptops or cd's.

Thanks for your help!
Christine

 

[Guest]

if you just copy the .mdb file into a backup folder, it will overwrite the
old one and nothing will build up. If you want to be able to go back to old
backups, make a folder for every day of the week, then you will only have 5
or 7 copies of the database at any one time.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your answer! And just to confirm, the best way to do this is with
the db closed, and just Copy/Paste it into the backup folder.

Correct?

 

[Arvin Meyer [MVP]]

Yes. As a matter of good practice, always copy programs after they have been
closed. If you copy an open program, you take a chance at corrupting the
file if someone is writing to it (or deleting from it) during the copy
process.
--
Arvin Meyer, MCP, MVP
Microsoft Access
Free Access downloads
http://www.datastrat.com
http://www.mvps.org/access