220-1102 Question 699
Single answerBackup testingA small accounting office backs up its QuickBooks company file and client documents to a network-attached storage (NAS) device every night. After a recent SSD failure on the receptionist's PC, the technician discovered that the latest backup job had reported "successful," but the QuickBooks file could not be opened after restoration because it was corrupted. The office manager asks what procedure should be added to the backup plan to best reduce the chance of this happening again.
- A
Periodically perform a test restore of backup data and verify that critical files open correctly
- B
Increase the backup schedule from nightly to hourly so there are more copies available
- C
Enable file compression on the NAS to reduce storage usage during backups
- D
Set the backup software to overwrite the oldest backup set automatically when space is low
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
The best answer is to periodically perform a test restore and verify the recovered data. A backup job status of "successful" only indicates that the process completed according to the software's criteria; it does not guarantee that files are intact, consistent, or application-usable. In real-world support, backup testing should include restoring representative files or systems and confirming they open properly, especially for critical business data such as accounting databases. This aligns with general backup best practices used across IT operations: verify backup completion, validate integrity, and test restoration procedures regularly. For A+ Core 2, candidates should recognize that the value of a backup is proven only when it can be restored successfully.
- A. Correct.
Correct. Backup testing means more than confirming that a job completed successfully; it includes restoring data and validating that the restored files are usable. In this scenario, the failure was not that the backup did not run, but that the restored QuickBooks file was corrupted. Periodic test restores of critical data are a standard best practice because they confirm both backup integrity and recoverability.
- B. Incorrect.
Incorrect. More frequent backups can improve recovery point objectives by reducing potential data loss between backups, but they do not prove that the backup data is valid or restorable. If backups are corrupted or misconfigured, making them more often just creates more unusable copies.
- C. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Compression may help conserve storage space and possibly reduce transfer size, but it does not address whether backed-up files can be restored successfully. This option focuses on storage efficiency rather than backup verification.
- D. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Automatic rotation or overwriting of older backups is a common retention setting, but it does not test whether backups are usable. In some environments, aggressive overwriting can actually make recovery worse if corrupted backups replace known-good ones before the problem is detected.