
Backup Data
Importance of Backing up Business Data
Aside from protecting business data from cyberattacks, another significant measure to take with data is to back it up. This is in case of an unexpected situation, such as a power blackout or computer malfunction, which might result in data corruption or data loss. For example, if all the business data is saved onto one computer, and that single computer goes down or the hard drive is destroyed, then all of that business’s data would be gone. Furthermore, there are some businesses that don’t backup their data digitally and choose to keep hard, physical copies on paper. All that information could be stolen or destroyed in a fire, and that business would have then lost the entirety of their data.
For proper data backup protection, here are three simple steps to follow:
1. Form a regular schedule for backing up data.
The first step is to identify the data that needs to be archived, such as accounting or financial information. These files are usually the ones that you created or modified. It is then recommended to archive business information on a regular schedule. There is a lot of archiving software that is designed specifically to archive data regularly and automatically. Some can even zip and encrypt the data backups to make it even more secure and also save disk space.
2. Backing up data on reliable platform.
The most common choices of backup data are:
- USB flash drives: these have enough capacity for small businesses, have a fast data transfer rate, and are highly portable;
- External hard drive: easy to use, and most external hard drives come with backup software;
- Cloud backup: easy to access (you just need an internet connection), and there are special money-saving storage offers if they’re being used for businesses; there is a concern for data security though, so your cloud provider needs to be carefully chosen;
- Tape backup: great for large amount of data, but more expensive.
3. Secure data backups offsite.
If possible, keeping your data backup device offsite (away from your business) would be better than keeping all of your data-recording devices in one place. This is to prevent the corruption or destruction of all of your data devices in the event of, say, a fire or a flash flood wrecking your business. That way, your offsite data backup device is less likely to be harmed and can safely restore all of your damaged or lost data. Cloud services are particularly good for this reason, as they are offsite (the cloud servers are managed by the cloud provider) and the cloud servers are usually located in a remote location.