Backups: Because "It Was on Kamau's Laptop" Is Not a Disaster Recovery Plan
Dear diary. Monday, 8:15am. Today I learned why data backup in Kenya matters. Arrived at the office to find Kamau standing by the window holding his laptop like a dead pet. He had taken it to Naivasha for the weekend "just in case work came up". Work did not come up. A bottle of soda did. It came up, and then it came down, right onto the keyboard.
Monday, 8:20am. Asked Kamau where the client proposals are saved. Kamau looked at the laptop. I looked at the laptop. The laptop said nothing, because it was no longer able to.
Monday, 8:25am. Began writing this article about data backup in Kenya, mostly so nobody else has to stand by a window holding a dead laptop.
Everyone has a Kamau
In almost every small business there is one machine where the important stuff lives. The accounts, the client list, the signed contracts, the logo files, the only copy of the price list. Sometimes it is a laptop. Sometimes it is a desktop in the corner. Sometimes it is the director's phone.
And the backup plan, if anyone is asked, is some version of "it is on Kamau's laptop" or "I think Achieng emailed it to herself once". That is not a plan. That is a prayer with extra steps.
Things that destroy data in Kenyan offices are not exotic. They are everyday:
Spilled chai, soda or the cleaner's bucket
Power surges when the power returns with enthusiasm
Theft, from a break in or a laptop left in a matatu
Ransomware that encrypts everything and asks for payment
Hard drives simply wearing out, which they all eventually do
Someone deleting the wrong folder on a Friday afternoon
The 3-2-1 data backup rule for Kenyan businesses
Backup experts love a simple rule called 3-2-1. It goes like this:
Keep three copies of your important data: the original and two backups
Store them on two different types of storage, for example a computer and an external drive or cloud service
Keep one copy offsite, somewhere physically away from the office
Why offsite? Because a fire, flood or burglary does not politely spare the backup drive sitting on the same shelf as the computer. If everything is in the same room, everything can disappear together.
Cloud backup services are the easiest way to tick the offsite box for most small businesses. They copy your files automatically to servers in another location. An external drive that a trusted person takes home weekly also works, as long as someone actually remembers to do it.
Automatic beats heroic
Here is the uncomfortable truth: manual backups do not happen. People mean well. Otieno promises to copy everything to the external drive every Friday. He does it twice, then there is a deadline, then a funeral upcountry, then the drive is somewhere in his drawer under a stack of receipts from 2022.
Set backups to run automatically, on a schedule, without anyone needing to remember. Most cloud storage and backup tools can do this. Then nominate one person whose job is to check, once a month, that the backups are still running.
Test your backups, seriously
A backup you have never restored is a rumour. Many businesses discover, at the worst possible moment, that their backup had been failing silently for months, or that it only included half the folders.
Every few months, try this:
Pick a random file and restore it from the backup
Open it and check it is the latest version, not something from last year
Confirm the backup includes all the important folders, not just the desktop
Note how long the restore took, so you know what to expect in a real emergency
It takes about twenty minutes and it will either give you peace of mind or a very useful fright.
What about cloud systems?
If you use cloud software for accounting, HR or school management, the provider usually handles backups of that data on their side. That is a big relief. It is still worth asking how often they back up, how long they keep backups and whether you can export your own data. A good provider will answer happily. A provider who goes quiet is telling you something.
Back to the diary
Monday, 4:00pm. Good news. Halima remembered that Kamau had shared some of the proposals in a shared cloud folder last month. We recovered most of them. The rest we rewrote, with a lot of chai and some words I will not put in a diary.
Monday, 4:30pm. Set up automatic cloud backup for every laptop in the office. Kamau has been banned from taking soda anywhere near electronics. He says this is unfair. The laptop, if it could speak, would disagree.
Your next step: list the three most important folders in your business and check, today, whether a copy exists anywhere other than one person's laptop. If you would rather have someone set up and monitor backups for you, talk to Philsoft.