Living a digital life does not come without its moments of angst, stress and sheer panic, especially for small businesses that rely on technology and the internet for their revenue. So many things can go awry, but the one that instills more fear than any other and is almost always unaddressed is loss of data. It’s a situation that can be easily avoided by having the right backup solutions for small businesses in place, and no it doesn’t have to cost you a small fortune for peace of mind!
Everyone is scared about the prospect of arriving in the office, coffee in hand, ready to start the day to find that the hard drive that they knew was well past due for replacement has finally given in and fried, or that their website was hacked and they have no way of recovering the website.
This type of loss for a small business can be devastating, but it is an issue that can be easily recovered if only some initial precautions were taken. I cannot even count the times that I’ve been called in to fix an inaccessible/hacked website or to try and restore data on a fried drive where the customer does not have any backups. It’s a heartbreaking situation especially if nothing can be done to retrieve the data or at least retrieve it in a cost effective and timely fashion in order to get the business back up and running.
Digital storage used to be super expensive, but this has not been the case for almost a decade. Nor does it take a huge amount of time to back data up these days – most of it can be set up to be done automatically, so you don’t even need to take manual backups.
Whatever has caused the lack of access to your data, you need to have contingencies in place so that you can get your small business and/or website back up and running as soon as possible. My suggestion for this is a two-fold belt and braces approach.
Firstly, get some cloud storage that will synchronize all your data directly to the cloud for you. You can even set your website to back up directly to your cloud storage solution in most cases, meaning no manual intervention after the initial set up. Companies that offer good solutions at good prices dropbox, SugarSync, Apple iCloud, Microsoft Skydrive, and even Google. An average sized small business should have to pay no more than around $10-$20 per month, depending on how much data you have. Some solutions are even free if you only have a very small amount of data.
Secondly, get yourself a portable hard drive, so that you can backup your data and keep a copy of it somewhere physically near you, but away from the office! Sometimes cloud storage may not be available when you need it, they have outages too for a variety of reasons – natural disasters, technical issues, hacking to name but a few. A Western Digital My Passport 1TB drive will cost you a one off amount of around $100. Most small businesses don’t need an intricate bespoke solution.
It’s cheap and easy to make sure that you can get your business back up and running as soon as you possibly can. Don’t leave it until after a disaster has struck to look into backup solutions for small business.
Do you have a solution in place that works for your small business? Let us know in the comments below!
Kittie Walker
@avidmode
Latest posts by Kittie Walker (see all)
- If You Are In a Regulated Industry, You Can Use New CRM Technologies - April 29, 2013
- Discover Why Finding Your New CRM Is Not a Solo Project - April 14, 2013
- Readying Business for Growth – Recipes for Your Business Processes - March 30, 2013
Awesome topic Kittie!! I know I have learned this the hard way a couple times with past computers. It sucks! So I hope people take your advice and back it up! :)
Thanks Paul! Just another one of those little things that we pay out crazy sums for when we have to clean up a mess that could be so easily avoided! I know I make money from the clear ups, but I really would prefer people to cut me out of the loop altogether :)
lol I don't blame you at all! :)
When it comes to the IT of our business, I am marginally knowledgable and extremely able to muck it up royally! Your post are well written and informative to me. Thanks for the enlightening information.
Lol I can't imagine you mucking anything up royally! Thanks for the kind words and glad you enjoyed the post!
We currently use Bitback for a hybrid solution. Bitbacked.com & Bitbackcloud.com – cloud is pricier but local on-site support if/when needed.
It's always good when you hit on a solution that you're comfortable with. That's one of the most important things finding something that suits your workflow and gives you peace of mind… thanks for sharing your thoughts.
As a Network Admin backing up is obviously #1. It surprises me how many people don't back up. I think (hope) it's getting better with all the solutions out there.
We're a digital world now – let's protect it :>)