How’s your data backup coming along?
Are you doing regular and consistent backups, or are you just backing up when it’s convenient?
Here’s a better question. If your computer/server crashed today, would you be able to retrieve your data successfully?
If you can confidently answer yes……like “Yes Andrew I got that covered”, awesome!
However, if that’s not quite the case, then let me give you a few pointers.
We all forget to back up our own data. It’s just not something we think about regularly. I fall prey to this too, so it’s not just you. We’re simply too busy dealing with other “important” things throughout the day. Remembering to do a backup is the farthest thing from our minds.
It’s not the most exciting either…
For this reason, I recommend setting an automatic schedule in place.
There are 3 media types I recommend for data backup. I’ll discuss them in detail below.
The Cloud
The cloud is the most secure of them all, in my opinion. The cool thing about backing up your data to the cloud is that you can access it from anywhere. As long as you have internet access of course.
People are still getting used to the idea of backing up their data to the cloud. The concept is still relatively new to most. My recommendation is to research the options that are out there, to see which one would work best for your office.
There are several options that you can choose from. Again, that’s why I recommend doing your homework to see what works best for you. To get you started, I’ll mention a few that are well-known in this space. There’s Dropbox, Google Drive, Carbonite, and Amazon to start with. Here at Advanced-PCs, we also provide cloud backup for our clients, as part of our Managed Service.
If you’re looking for more options, do a Google search on the different vendors out there.
NAS (Network Attached Storage)
A NAS connects to your internal network and allows you to share folders across the network.
The benefit here is that it’s not dependent upon one computer. It acts almost like a server, just not as secure and it doesn’t have Active Directory. Some also come with a cloud backup feature.
A NAS is a much more economical way to have an on-premise backup device, second to a server. Many companies start here and then work their way up to higher-level platforms.
To find a NAS, best suited for you, again do a Google search, or check Amazon.
External Hard Drive
Now for my final recommended backup media, the external hard drive. This is a step down from a NAS…..however, it’s a start.
Most external hard drives come with software that allows you to schedule your backup automatically. Which is nice…
You can just set it and forget it.
The only drawback with an external hard drive is that an external hard drive is a local device (A NAS is also local, but like I mentioned before some with cloud capability). It can get lost or stolen. So be careful not to get careless when using it.
Always keep it in a safe location when it’s not being used. I’ll even recommend getting two that you can rotate between onsite and offsite for CYA reasons.
Making the Decision
All three option addresses the issue of putting a schedule in place, so your backup is done on autopilot.
Whatever option you choose to go with, is entirely up to you. Just make sure to have something in place. You’ll save yourself so much time and money in the long run.
As I mentioned before, Advanced-PCs provide this service on a monthly basis. To give you a better idea of how to schedule your backups, our backups are done every night at 9 pm. All of our client’s data is backed up to the cloud and is encrypted.
Having a platform that handles the backup automatically, consistently, and in an encrypted format is a great way to go.
Keep that in mind when making your decision.