MadTECH Computers
Managed I.C.T Services Queensland

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Step by step guides and product/software reviews for our clients are here:

Pro-active Server Maintenance

These are the 12 steps madTECH Computers completes every day on the servers it manages under it's Managed Service Contract.

  1. Monitor backups, check backup reports and do a test recovery of a critical folder
    First we check the SOS Online Backup program, to make sure the cloud backup ran the night before. Then we access the cloud backup dashboard,click on View/restore, and check the critical folder list and do a test restoration. Once complete, we do a local backup test. For this, the process is the same as above, we log onto Shadow Protect, check the backup log shows successful backup logs, then do a critical folder restoration.For this, we do an explore backup job from within Shadowprotect, mount the backup external drive, and choose the ShadowProtect image file with the latest date. Usually it is a different drive letter than C: Drive. Shadowprotect then creates a new drive, we assign it a letter and can browse the backed up data. I then choose a critical folder, and do a restoration, then browse the data to make sure it isn't corrupted. Once the restored data is verified, i run the dismount drive wizard from within Shadow Protect.

  2. Check Disk UsageFirst check available space, project disk space required for future growth (at least until end of year), clear unnecessary items, clear logs, uninstall obsolete programs. The less data to recover in a recovery means faster up time. Make sure there is at least 10% disk space free, more so if its the data partition or file server. Especially if you are storing a lot of video or other high space data types. Sometimes building companies and architectural companies save a lot of plans and require lots of space. Enterprise environments also chew up hard drive space at an alarming rate.

    To clear logs, we go to Event Viewer and right click each log, action, and clear log.  You can save and clear, or just clear the log.

    After clearing the logs, we go through the Server file explorer and delete any un needed files and folders.  These can include SOS online backup cached backup sets (located at: C:\

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