Many small businesses find out whether their backups work at the worst possible moment. A restore test moves that discovery to a quiet afternoon instead. This guide walks through a first test that needs no special tools, only access to your backup system and an hour or two.
Before you start
- Confirm who has the login for the backup system, and that the login and its multi-factor authentication still work.
- Pick a quiet time when a mistake will not disrupt anyone.
- Choose somewhere safe to restore to, such as a new folder or a spare computer. Never restore over live data during a test.
Step 1: Choose what to restore
Start small. Pick a few files from different places: a document from the shared drive, something from one person’s computer and, if you back up cloud email, a single message or folder. Include at least one file that changed recently and one that has not been touched for a while. That checks both recent backups and older versions.
Step 2: Note the starting point
Write down the date, the time, which backup set you are restoring from and which version date you expect to get. This is the beginning of your test log.
Step 3: Run the restore
Follow your backup software’s restore steps, sending the files to your safe location. Pay attention to anything confusing along the way, such as unclear menus or a password nobody remembered. Those details matter, because on a real recovery day the person doing this may be under pressure.
Step 4: Check the results
- Open every restored file. A file that exists but will not open is not a successful restore.
- Compare it with the original where possible, to confirm it is the expected version.
- Note how long the whole process took, from login to opened file.
Step 5: Go back in time
Restore an older version of one file, from a week or a month ago if your retention allows. This confirms that version history is really being kept, which matters when a problem like file corruption or ransomware is noticed late.
Step 6: Record what you found
Finish the test log with what worked, what did not, how long each step took and what you would change. Store it somewhere that would still be reachable if your main systems were down, such as a printed copy kept with your other important records.
Step 7: Fix and schedule
If something failed, fix it and repeat the test. Then put the next test in the calendar. Small spot checks are worth doing at least every quarter, with a fuller test of a whole system after major changes. Our answer on how often to test restores explains the reasoning.
What a first test tells you
Even a small test answers important questions: do you have access, is the data really there, can you find the version you need, and roughly how long would recovery take? If the answers are uncomfortable, that is useful information, and far better learned now than during an outage. Confirm your setup still meets the 3-2-1 backup rule, and see the backup plans page for how regular testing fits into a complete arrangement.