6 Questions to ask when deciding how to backup your data

Image by Michael Giuffrida about ImplementationMost businesses know that its important to backup your company’s data, but there are a lot of different strategies for doing so.  How do you know if you have done enough to ensure you will not lose any data in the event of a disaster?  A good rule of thumb for data backup is called the 3-2-1 rule.  This rule says you should have 3 copies of the data, on at least 2 different mediums, with at least 1 of those offsite.  How you implement that rule at your business depends upon your operation.

There are several different types of data backup mediums to choose from.  There is the traditional tapes, portable hard drives, optical drives, and even the cloud.  You should choose your strategy based upon the type of data you have, the amount of data you have, and your resilience for lost data/time in the event of a data disaster.  Discuss these questions with your IT team or provider to help design the right strategy for you:

  1. How much data do we have to backup?
  2. Does all of that data change regularly or can some of it be archived?
  3. When we have a data disaster, how many days/hours/minutes of data can we afford to lose?
  4. When we have a data disaster, how quickly do we need to get back up and running?
  5. Does our data contain personally identifiable information or healthcare information?
  6. Are we subject to any regulations that require us to backup our data in a certain way?

Once you decide what your needs are, you can look at different services that might be able to help.  Services such as Crashplan Pro and Carbonite specialize in small business backups and might be right for your needs. For larger organizations, services like Datto and Veeam offer options where your data can be backed up onsite and offsite achieving multiple steps in the 3-2-1 rule.  Your IT team or provider should be able to help you make the right choices.


Michael Giuffrida from Southington CT has been operating businesses since 1997.  He is an experienced entrepreneur in business management, profitable growth, business valuation, mergers and acquisitions, and information technology managed services

 

4 thoughts on “6 Questions to ask when deciding how to backup your data

  • All good points I think in addition I would say when did we last do a full recovery test and what were the results? Based on the results did we update and adapt?

  • I was in charge of data protection for a company over twenty years ago and went into other professional arenas. However, looking at the current model for backup, very little has changed with the exception of the types of storage available today and the quantity of data that can be saved in very small spaces. The concept that remains the same is that all of this protection is useless if the company is not diligent regarding trial recovery and training of employees.

  • My business is so small that I have not considered backup. Guess that’s a big mistake. Will look into the options immediately. Getting lots of good info from these articles.

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