Data loss can irreparably harm a business. The loss of important files and data will also translate in a loss of time and productivity. It can also harm a company’s reputation. This is why backup software is an important business investment.
Given how dependent companies, be they big or small, are on computers in their day to day operations they would be wise to invest in backup software to protect them from permanent data loss.
You can lose data for a variety of reasons, hardware or software problems, viruses, malware, natural disasters, or plain human error. While you can’t prevent all types of data loss incidents, there is something that you can do to ensure that these incidents don’t result in permanent long term damage: Create regular backups.
What do you lose if you don’t backup your data?
1. Your customer’s trust, if they find out that you did not take care of your data
2. Your employee’s time, if they can’t perform their normal tasks because the data they need is no longer accessible
Data loss represents a loss in time and effort for your company; it is also bad for your company’s reputation. For example, if you have a newsletter that customers subscribe to and you lose the database with their details, how will you now provide the service that they paid for?
Even worse, you will now have to rebuild the database that represents a loss of time and productivity. If the lost data was crucial to operations, you might have to shut down for a while to repair the systems.
There’s also the blow that this will have to your company’s reputation when your customers realize that you’ve lost their data.
What do I need to know about backing up data?
1. It needs to be done regularly
Rule of thumb when it comes to deciding what needs to be backed up is, if your business will ground to a halt if the data is lost, you need to back it up. In many cases, important data changes daily, like in a spreadsheet of accounts payable.
Crucial files that are modified frequently need to be regularly backed up, the best way to do this is to have backup software installed on your office computers. Many backup programs allow you to create backups on a schedule. For example, every two days, after office hours the program will automatically backup your data.
A good backup program to have on your office computers is DataNumen Disk Image, it can clone a computers disks and drives and restore them – and the data inside.
2. You need to have multiple backups in safe places
If your backups are all in one place or device, such as a hard drive or on a separate lap top, it can be stolen. Also, in the case of a natural disaster like a hurricane or earthquake damaging your offices, your backup devices can be lost.
While you should still have physical backups, say on an external hard drive or a laptop kept in a safe place, you should also have off-site backups. You can make multiple backups and keep them in a safe place, like a bank security box. You should also think about having a copy of your backups on a cloud storage surface.
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