In the summer of 2021 the metrowest Boston area where I live had a strong lightning storm that knocked out many houses and businesses. I have had APC UPSs since the 1990s. I do backups consistently.
What happened was that a degrade occurred to the Quicken database. I used the computer until a few days before Xmas 2021 when it completely crashed. I had to get everything new except for an additional disk drive inside the computer. I was able to restore from my backups BUT … Quicken was hopelessly corrupt. Since I have been using Quicken since the DOS days of the late 1980s, I extracted just the data from 2000 and loaded it onto a new QDATA file. However, that was not enough
I was missing at time two or more years from several accounts. I used two methods to reconstruct the data: 1) extracting data from PDF files into Excel files and then using ProperConvert to create QXF files and 2) manually enter the data. It was extremely time-consuming and "painful". To avoid doing that painful reconstruct again, I am copying selective backups into a separate directory. My parameter is: monthly unless I make a lot of changes.
Technically, APC (now Schneider Electric) said the large UPS I was using was insufficient to protect me from a lightning storm. BTW, the local pizza restaurant had a similar experience and solution. So, I bought the SMXRMxxxx battery pack. I have experienced a few lightning storms since then, but I have not had any problems with my computer. And … the local pizza restaurant has not, either. :-)
Unless Quicken does journaling or incremental backups, I feel that that steps I have taken are the safest to avoid a major disaster.
