Small and medium business owners know how important data is. It’s the information that helps your company grow. If you lose it, not only will you have to start from scratch to rebuild it, but the setback can also cost you customers, time, money, and resources. That’s why backing up data is one of the most important things SMBs can do for their company.
What Is Data Backup?
There are plenty of important things for your budding small business, like content marketing. And backing up your data is one whose importance shouldn’t be overlooked. Data backup creates copies of your information if something happens to your data. If your database gets corrupted, your computer gets hacked, and data is deleted, or if you accidentally delete files, you don’t want to lose all that information. You want to be able to go back to a previous state of your data to make sure you don’t lose anything.
Why Is Backing Up Data So Important For Small Businesses?
Losing data is possible for any business. It’s not a matter of “if” but “when.” A successful data backup plan will get you back up and running in no time. It might be a combination of on-site, off-site, and cloud-based backups. And while it may seem like a lot of extra work, it’s important to remember that this is something you need to do to protect your company.
How Do You Back Up Your Data?
You can back up your data in two main ways: manually and automatically. Manual backups require you to manually back up your data to an external storage device, like a hard drive, flash drive, or network-attached storage device. Manual backups are great if you only deal with a few gigabytes of data. But they don’t scale well when dealing with terabytes or petabytes of data. Automatic backups will automatically back up your data to a cloud service, like Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud. These types of backups will typically scale much better than manual backups and are great for businesses with a lot of data.
Cloud-Based Data Backup For SMBs
Cloud-based data backup is the ideal solution for SMBs. Backing up your data to the cloud means it will be backed up remotely, off-site, so you don’t have to worry about physically storing it in one place. Automatic cloud-based backups allow you to set your data up so that it gets backed up every time you make a change. This way, you don’t have to worry about manually backing up your data anymore — it’ll just happen. Check out this website for more information on cloud backup.
Offline Storage Media For SMBs
Offline storage media, often called an offline backup, is when you physically store a copy of your data on a hard drive, typically an external hard drive. And put it in a safe location away from your business. You can store this data on an unencrypted network-attached storage device, or you can keep it on an encrypted network-attached storage device. The latter is the most secure option. Offline storage is the most basic form of data backup since it requires you to place a hard drive at a different location physically.
3 Best Practices Of Data Backup For SMBs
- Create A Backup Schedule
This may seem obvious, but you must ensure you’re consistently backing up your data. Set a weekly, daily, or monthly schedule and stick to it.
- Test Your Backup Process
Make sure you know how your backup plans work. Test your data backup process every so often to ensure it’s still functional.
- Use Multiple Backup Methods
Make sure you’re not relying on just one type of backup. Instead, create a combination of different backups to ensure your data is as protected as possible.
Conclusion
Data backup is not something to ignore. You must have a backup plan because you never know when something will go wrong. Data backups are the best way to restore data in case of a disaster, and they also serve as a great way to restore accidentally deleted files.
