Answers · 13 November 2026 · By Dorian, founder

Would our backups restore? How to test them

You only know a backup works once you have restored from it. A backup can report "completed" every night and still be empty, out of date or impossible to open, so test a restore now, while nothing is wrong.

1. List what the business cannot work without

Write down what would have to come back first, and where each lives:

• Email: every mailbox, with its folders and sent mail.
• Shared files: the folders everyone works from, wherever they are kept.
• The accounts: bookkeeping data, invoices and payroll.
• The website: its files and its database, with the orders or bookings in it.
• Anything kept on one computer: a laptop or desktop that holds the only copy of something.

A folder that syncs is not a backup. OneDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox carry a deletion or a damaged file to every device within minutes, and they keep deleted files for a limited time only.

2. Find the backup, and the date of the last one

For each item on the list, answer these questions:

• Who makes the copy, and with what?
• Where is it kept?
• When did the last one finish?
• How far back does it go: a week, a month, a year?
• Who holds the password or key to it, and where is that written down?

If nobody can answer within ten minutes, that is the first thing to fix.

3. Restore one file, one mailbox and one whole system

Restore to a different place, never over the original, so a failed test damages nothing.

• One file. Pick a document that changed last week. Restore it to a new folder and open it.
• One mailbox. Restore an email that was deleted a month ago, with its attachment.
• One whole system. The website with its database at a test address, or the accounts data on a spare computer. Time it from start to finish.

Start one of the three from a computer other than the one that is backed up. If a restore only works from the original computer, losing that computer loses the backup.

4. Read what the test tells you

• Did it open? A restored file that will not open means a backup that does not work.
• How old was the newest copy? That is how much work you would have to do again.
• How long did it take? That is how long the business would wait.

Anything on your list that has no copy at all needs one this week.

5. Keep one copy out of reach

Ransomware, the attack that locks your files until you pay, encrypts everything it can reach: a USB drive that stays plugged in, a storage box on the office network, a synced folder. The usual rule is three copies, on two kinds of storage, one of them somewhere else. Encrypt the copy that leaves the building, and keep its password away from the computers it protects.

6. Write it down, and do it again

Record the date, what was restored, how long it took and who did it. Repeat the test at least every three months, every month for what the business cannot work without, and after every change of system. An insurer that asks about backups is asking for this record: see The insurance form asks about cyber security.

How DARCH helps

For every DARCH client, encrypted backups run every night and a restore is tested every month. The copies are encrypted before they are stored and kept with a second provider in the EU, away from the server they protect. The dates of the last backup and of the last restore test are public: see them on the status page.

That covers what we host for you: websites, mailboxes and client data. Backups you run yourself, on laptops or with another provider, are checked in the Security check.

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