14 Jan How Successful Companies Backup Data
Want to know how successful companies grow and thrive, get to know what they do with their data.
Data backup is essential for protecting your business’s continuity.
If your only backup is on a single desktop/laptop computer or mobile device and it’s lost or stolen, your business data is gone. Having paper copies of business data isn’t adequate data protection either; in the event of fire or severe flooding again the data you need to carry on your business could irretrievably be lost.
You invariably need to establish a data backup system that follows these three steps in order to ensure adequate protection of your data:
- Backup business data regularly
- Create backups on reliable media or in the cloud
- If using media for backups keep the devices in a secure, off-site location
The basic rule for business data protection is that if losing the data will interfere with doing business, back it up.
Data Archive vs Data Backup
Backups are normally periodic, short term images of data for disaster recovery purposes. Archiving, meanwhile, generally refers to long-term storage of data that is no longer in regular use but can be restored if need be (for example, a finished project or data from a former client).
Backup Critical Business Data
There are two steps to successful data backup;
Identifying the critical data that needs to be backed up
Implementing backups of the data on a regular schedule
Cloud Storage
Using online backup services makes backing up your data easy – which is just one of the reasons cloud computing is ideal for small businesses. But cloud services can still be vulnerable to data loss via hacking or employee sabotage.
Local Data Backups
If you save your data locally (e.g. you are not using cloud storage) you can simplify your backups by keeping all the files that will need to be archived on a single drive on your computer.
Online Backup Services
For ultimate security make sure you use strong passwords, change them regularly, and make sure the backed up files are encrypted (since cloud storage is shared, cloud providers normally encrypt user data).
USB (Thumb) Drives
USB sticks are constantly increasing in capacity and are ideal for quick data backups. While not having the capacity of external hard drives they have fast data transfer rates and are highly portable. You can easily backup data to a USB drive and take it offsite. As they have no moving parts, USB drives are very reliable.
External Hard Drives
For small businesses, buying and using an external hard drive for data backups is the recommended method. External hard drives are inexpensive compared to tape drive systems. They’re also easy to use. Most external hard drives come with backup software.
Local Area Network (LAN) Storage
If you have a local area network (LAN) you can also backup files to another computer or server. However, if the backup machine resides in the same location, to avoid theft a server can be installed in a locked cage, cabinet, or closet.
Tape Storage
If you have large amounts of data to backup (or wish to make and retain regular complete data archives for long-term storage) tape backups are the best option. They are highly reliable and can store massive amounts of data.
Don’t run the risk of losing your business data. The best defense against such a disaster is proper data protection. Remember, you can never have too many data backups!