Data Back-Up Strategies for Your Business

Do you backup data? One would hope you do, and can’t imagine you don’t, but sad to say, many find data backup overwhelming and tedious so they nix it. One of the problems with getting a small businesses to secure data is they think they need to load up thumbdrives, DVDs or tape devices manually. This is in fact tedious and overwhelming.

I’ve got news for you, data backup is easy. With onsite software/hardware and offsite cloud based servers, business data backupis a complete no brainer.

There are many databackup options. New PCs often come bundled with backup options. Microsoft Windows 7 comes with “Windows Restore/Back Up” accessible via the Control Panel, and Macs offer a data protection option called Time Machine. You can buy an external hard drive to copy your files too, or invest in a remote backup service.

I suggest backing up twice on local drives and once in the cloud.

Cloud backup options include Mozy, and Carbonite among others.

Mozy online backup costs $6 per month to back up 50 gigabytes of data on one computer, or $110.00 a year for 125 gigabytes on up to three computers. Mozy offers an easy to use interface and quick, effortless backups of every file type, including files on external drives. If you have over 110 gigabytes, though, it gets pricey.

Carbonite online backup offers unlimited storage from one computer for under $5 per month. Carbonite is inexpensive with an easy-to-use interface that allows you to access your data via an iPhone app, which is very cool. Unfortunately, Carbonite won’t back up external drives, backing up certain media, like videos, is slow, and you have to manually check your folders to make sure everything has successfully been backed up. Also, certain files like software programs with a variety of unusual file extensions, have to be zipped beforehand, since Carbonite won’t back up the individual files with odd extensions.

Local drives: For many small businesses 1-2 TB is all the backup you need. Install a secondary 2TB drive and for $20 install Goodsync. Goodsync automatically backs up your data locally from an internal drive to many external drives.

Goodsync automatically syncs my internal E: drive and external F: drive every two hours. I do this because, while all my data is stored in the cloud, if my internal drive does crash, downloading it all would be a chore, plus, I’d need a drive to download it anyway.

The cloud is ideal for mitigating major data losscatastrophes, but not practical for accessing data on a daily basis.

Robert Siciliano personal and small business security specialist toADT Small Business Security discussingADT Pulse on Fox News. Disclosures