The Importance of backups
A reliable backup system costs money but is cheap compared to losing business data. People lose data for all sorts of reasons. The big four are hardware failure, equipment theft, fire and flood. Everyone knows that hard disks can fail but often dismiss the other three as unlikely.
Computer equipment theft is not as common as it used to be, but if it happens to your business, then data loss will result if you don’t have proper backups.
Flood is rare but is not just limited to water rising from heavy rain, consider the risk of a leaky roof or the office above yours having a burst pipe. Faulty air conditioning can leak and damage the equipment it is there to protect.
Fire is the least likely event but is the ultimate test of backup systems. More common than hardware failure is user deletion of data, either accidentally or maliciously. There are various ways of backing up vital data.
Online backups
The best option for small businesses is online backups. These involve backing up data over the Internet to a cloud backup service. There are several advantages to this type of backup. The data is off-site, so the information is safe, whatever happens to the computer or server. They are automatic, so no one needs to change the tapes. They even work on bank holidays when a tape-based system might fail due to no one replacing the tape. The downside of online backups is the limited speed due to the bandwidth available from Internet connections. We offer a free 30-day trial online backup service. Use our contact us page to request a trial.
USB Drive backups
Many businesses choose to use external USB disk drives for backup. These are better than nothing but have some significant drawbacks. Any disaster that befalls the server is likely to affect the external drive. Fire, flood or theft will also affect the external drive resulting in data loss. These devices offer only protection against server hardware failure and manual data deletion.
Another consideration is that portable USB drives are vulnerable to theft. Portable USB drives used for backups a rarely encrypted and, when stolen, are easy to recover data from. Data theft will usually result in GDPR problems.
Tape backups
Tape backup systems are traditional and offer excellent protection if managed correctly. Tapes are still appropriate where substantial amounts of data need backup or company policy forbids online backup. Storing tapes off-site or in fire-resistant safes gives a high level of security. As long as the backup system uses enough tapes, multiple copies of vital data will be available. Many tapes are valuable if data loss goes undetected for some time, sometimes if a single file or folder goes missing.
Unfortunately, tape backup systems are expensive as quality tape drives are not cheap. Tapes are inexpensive, but the cost mounts up as at least ten are required to give adequate protection. As well as the tape drive, the server needs a suitable interface and data cable, which will add to the cost. Good quality back software is essential. Windows servers include simple backup software, but this does not have quality reporting tools, so problems might go undetected.
Monitoring Backups
Having the proper hardware and software does not guarantee good backups. Network administrators must configure backups correctly to ensure adequate and continuous protection. As data structures change, the backups need ongoing reconfiguration and testing to provide continued protection. Constant monitoring and daily reporting give confidence to successful backups.
3-2-1 backup rule
The 3-2-1 backup rule is an easy-to-remember acronym for a common approach to keeping your data safe in almost any failure scenario. The rule is to keep at least three copies of your data on at least two storage media types, with one located offsite.