Best Practices

Select the correct files to Backup

Avoid selecting entire disks while selecting files to be backed up.

Avoid selecting temporary system files/directories while designing your backup schedule. Selecting the entire disk partition on which the OS is installed (e.g. C:\ in a Windows machine) will cause unnecessary changed file notification of operating system files to your backup software and reduce the backup performance.

Use Backup Time Windows

If possible, schedule your client backups to run during time intervals when system resources are relatively free.

For example, you could schedule your client machines to backup after business hours to improve system performance and reduce network bandwidth usage during business hours.

Encrypt backups

Always ensure that your backups are protected with passwords.  Sky Backups by default uses the advanced Blowfish encryption algorithm with 448-bit military level encryption to secure backup data.

System State Backups

Creating a backup Schedule for system states can save you a lot of time when recovering from system crashes.

If you wish to be able to restore the Windows Registry alone, schedule a Windows Registry backup separately along with the System State Backup.

Backing up HUGE number of small files?

In case your backup dataset consists of a large number of small files (e.g. 100,000 files of 1kb each), you can optimize backup performance by breaking up the dataset into multiple backup schedules and then running them in parallel.  This ensures optimal usage of bandwidth as well as the storage throughput, thus speeding up your backups.