Five Reasons Why Small Businesses Should Consider Online Backup Services

I think most small business owners have some idea of the importance of backing up their computer data. However, since their IT budgets are limited, they don't usually get the same level of protection that a professional IT operation would provide for a larger business. Online backup provides small businesses and even home offices professional quality data backup services at very reasonable costs.

Here are five clear reasons why small businesses should consider online backup systems.

1) Offsite Storage - Online backup services by their nature store data off site. Tape and other media-based local backup solutions require an additional, and manual, effort to move backup copies of data to off site locations. The procedures and human efforts required to transport and store backup data off-site are often complex, expensive, error prone, and inconvenient.

2) Security - Professional online backup services always encrypt backup data. The better services also store the data in encrypted form. And some of the better online backup service providers use private key encryption methods so that even their own engineers and technicians have no access to the contents of your backup files. There are numerous examples of backup tapes, CD's, and portable devices turning up lost or stolen and exposing thousands of customer and employee records to potential identity thieves.

3) Consistency - Manual procedures and human intervention are the source of inconsistent data backups. Online backup systems are the most automated that you can get. In most cases there are absolutely no manual procedures to be neglected, skipped, or forgotten.

4) Simplicity - Online backup is much simpler than other solutions because you don't need to set up any hardware or complex software. In addition there is no media to be handled or manual procedures. Most online backup services require a subscription and a simple piece of software that is downloaded from a website.

5) Cost - Online backup services are much less expensive than traditional backup technology. You save the upfront costs of hardware, software, and media. And then you continue to save on the ongoing maintenance and cost of ownership of the system. Furthermore, there is no additional expense involved in transporting and maintaining backup data in an offsite storage location. Online backup also requires very little human resource time to setup, monitor, and operate.

There is no reason why a small business should have a less robust data backup system than a larger organization. A good online backup service provides enterprise quality data backup service at an affordable price.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great blog, I think it just about covers every thing you to look for in an online backup process. The only thing I would add is the restore process, how easy it is to recover data and if you get the right provider how quick it can be. I write this from my experience of data loss and recovery.

I use an online backup product from Perfectbackup, their software allows me to automatically backup my data to a small network attached drive and also offsite at the same time. I must be unlucky because I have had to recover my data from my local NAS and from their offsite storage facilities on separate occasions.

First time my drive failed, after replacing my drive I recovered my 120GB of data from the NAS within 4 hours and continued working as usual. I was impressed. The second time we suffered a flood, this wiped out everything, my PC's NAS drive, everything. I ordered a new computer plus peripherals and contemplated how long is would take me to download 130GB of data. I called Perfectbackup support to make them aware of my issue and they arranged for my data to be sent to me on disk. My data actually arrived before my new PC, so I had relocated from office to home with a new computer and my data and was back working the very next day.

I cannot stress enough the importance of backing up and if I have not backed up my business would not have survived. Perfectbackup have looked after me so I am putting a good word in for them, their site is
http://www.perfectbackup.co.uk/online-backup

Anonymous said...

I like Rhinoback, they offer all of the capabilities you mention and they are more focussed on small business. http://www.rhinoback.com

Jen McCleve said...

If you have a small business there is no reason not to have a business online backup. If you lose your clients information then that can be disastrous. If for nothing else the peace of mind that you can have is worth the money.

iDeals said...

Routine computer file backup prevents loss of critical historical data if the computers are damaged by fire or stolen, or the staff quickly relocates in an emergency.

DavidPreston said...

Its really an informative share!!

I prefer using ADRC Data Recovery Software Tools which contains a collection of data recovery tools that supports various drives, servers and file system as well.