The 3 Most Popular Data Backup Measures

A disaster that results in data loss is one of the worst things that can happen to your business. It has been shown that 40% of small businesses hit with a disaster do not reopen. One of the biggest contributors to this statistic is when businesses fail to backup their data. Here are three data backup measures your business can choose from.

External Hard Drive
The external hard drive is the most popular data backup solution for computer users. In a recent worldwide survey of 600 PC users, 60% listed the external hard drive as their backup solution of choice. It's easy to see why the external hard drive is so popular. It can be found in any major retail store, and external hard drives have enough memory to backup any-sized drive. Also, it doesn't take an IT technician to operate an external hard drive; even a PC novice can figure out how to backup their data by plugging it in and following the instructions.

If you're looking for an easy-to-use backup solution for your home PC, then an external hard drive is your best option. However, you will find it difficult to make a single external hard drive unit work for backing up all the workstations and servers on your company's network. While it is possible to use an external hard drive to back up your business, it will take some creative wiring and maintenance to pull it off.

Backing up with an external hard drive is better than not backing up at all, but it's a weak solution when it comes to major disasters that can damage your office. If a disaster, like a flood, takes out your workstations along with your external hard drive, then your backup plan just failed and you are facing a 40% chance of going out of business. Another external hard drive risk is that it can easily be carried off by a thief wanting to know your secrets.

Tape Backup
Another way to backup your data is to use tapes. You won't find a tape backup solution at your local electronics retail store, primarily because the technology is outdated. Yet, despite the antiquity of backing up with tape, it's still popular among businesses.

The advantage of tape backup is that, unlike external hard drives, tape is designed to backup an entire IT network. The disadvantage of tape backup is that there's a lot of maintenance involved that will eat away at productivity. For example, with tape backup, you will have to switch out full tapes for fresh tapes every day, and find a place to store them. In the event of a disaster, getting your backed up system online will be time consuming, and your backed up data will still be at the same risk as your building. Which means something like a fire will destroy both your servers and your tape.

Backup and Disaster Recovery Solution
Backing up your data to the cloud is the easiest and most secure data backup option. Computerware can set your business up with this cloud technology that automatically backs up your company's data with our Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) solution. With BDR, there's no maintenance on your part because Computerware handles the entire backup process from our end, freeing you up to work on more important tasks. Additionally, a BDR solution will work for a business of any size.

What really makes BDR distinct from other backup solutions is the fact that it will keep your data safe if your office is ever hit with a disaster. With BDR, your data is backed up to multiple datacenters for maximum protection; and with BDR's data recovery feature, you can have your entire network virtualized onto different computers if something were to ever happen to your existing hardware.

For being the best backup solution on the market, you may be surprised to learn how affordable BDR is. Call us at (703) 821-8200 to learn more!