The files that pay the bills, like the estimate a homeowner still has in their email or the invoice the bookkeeper hasn’t sent, are the ones people ask for when a laptop dies or a folder goes missing. A backup can show a healthy status for months without anyone asking it for one of them back, and a finished backup job isn’t a restore.
Backup testing doesn’t have to mean rebuilding the office. The simplest version is one file, chosen on purpose, restored where you can see it.
Choose one sample and a separate folder
Before anything is restored, agree three things with your provider: which file, which folder it goes to, and what counts as a good result. The person who already manages the backup then does the restore.
Pick a file a coworker could open without seeing anything secret. A password list, a payroll export or a tax packet doesn’t belong in a side folder. An estimate from a job that’s already closed is a better choice: the prices are old, and it’s the same kind of document you’d miss on a live bid. One file is enough, not the shared drive, a whole mailbox or a live database.
Name the folder before the restore starts, in plain words you both recognize, and keep it away from the folder where this week’s estimate is open. The restored copy must never write over the live file. Crews keep pricing jobs while this happens, and because the sample sits in its own folder, you can always tell the two copies apart.
A sample restore test, start to finish
- 1
Choose the sample
One non-sensitive file that’s typical of your work. Not a whole computer, mailbox or live database. - 2
Restore it to a separate folder
Your provider puts the copy there, never in the live working folder. - 3
Check it
It opens, it’s the version you asked for, and it’s complete. A backup status on its own doesn’t count. - 4
Record the result
Where it came from, the date, the folder, the result, who accepted it, the next step, how long it took and any issues. - 5
Stop
The test covers that one file and nothing more.
For where backup testing fits in your office’s wider file plan, see our guide to data backup for contractors.
Check the file, then stop
With the sample in its folder, check three things: it opens, it’s the version you asked for, and it’s complete enough to use.
The right version can be older than the file on the computer. Say a homeowner calls about a number from a bid you sent in the spring, but the spreadsheet on the desk now has new quantities and a revised labor rate. If you asked for the spring file, the restored copy should show the spring total, with the customer name and date that match the call. Older isn’t a defect when you asked for the older copy, and the newer file stays where it is.
Which kind of backup the copy came from is a separate question, covered in incremental versus differential backup. How far back you can reach, like whether last spring’s file is still there, depends on backup retention.
Then stop. One estimate, one invoice or one supplier sheet is the whole test. A sample that opens doesn’t prove you could recover a full computer, a whole mailbox or the whole office after a disaster. If you need more than one file checked, a broader recovery test is a separate agreement with your provider.
Record the result together
Fill in the record with your provider once the sample is in its folder, from what actually happened. You know which estimate you named, and your provider knows which account the copy came from.
Set your request next to the file that landed and compare details your office already knows from the bid: the customer name, the job address, the date. Write the match or the miss in a plain sentence the bookkeeper could follow. The owner accepts the result, since only the owner can say this is the estimate the customer called about. Your provider can’t accept it for you.
Restore-test record
- SourceWhich backup or account the sample came from
- Blank, to fill in
- DateWhen the restore was done
- Blank, to fill in
- Restore locationThe separate folder it went to
- Blank, to fill in
- ResultOpens or fails, right version or not, complete or not
- Blank, to fill in
- Time takenHow long this one restore took
- Blank, to fill in
- IssuesAnything that failed or was unclear
- Blank, to fill in
- Accepted byWho accepted the result
- Blank, to fill in
- Next stepRepeat, fix, or ask for a broader test
- Blank, to fill in
Keep the sheet with the job file, where the estimator and bookkeeper can find it. When someone asks, months from now, whether a file has ever come back from the backup, the sheet answers it. If you want the test repeated, put that in the written plan your provider keeps.
At Ghostworx, backup checks and restore tests are part of the baseline on both plans and are never billed. They cover the business data your coverage plan lists, usually business email and cloud files. Backup for files stored only on a computer is quoted separately. See Security and Backup for the full list.