Offsite Backup Service - Is Your Business Using an Offsite Backup Service to Protect It"s Data?
If your business lost its data, how much would it cost you to recover or recreate it? Trying to recover lost data is notoriously troublesome and unreliable.
You may in fact spend thousands of dollars and in the end it may still cost you your business.
A study completed by Price Waterhouse Coopers in 2004 found that 7 out of 10 small business owners that experienced a major data loss eventually went out of business within a year.
Some of the major causes of data loss include: technical disasters from file corruption, worms, viruses, power failures, system updates and hard drive crashes; natural disasters caused from fire, earthquakes, lightning, floods and hurricanes; human caused disasters caused when an employee accidentally or intentionally deletes files, stolen laptops, accidents, etc.
And if you own a laptop, chances are it could get stolen, damaged from dropping, misplaced, or suffer from hard drive failures.
There are a number of different data backup methods available but the most cost effective and efficient method is to use an offsite backup service.
All you need is an internet connection and you can backup your data automatically.
All these services require a fee that can be paid monthly, quarterly or annually.
The nice thing about an offsite backup service is that you do not have to be a technical genius to use the service.
One important thing to keep in mind however is that not all offsite backup services are equal.
Just like anything in life, you pretty much get what you pay for.
A number of bargain basement services have hit the market place these days that sacrifice critical components that make up an offsite backup system that include important bandwidth, reliability and support.
These companies are put together by venture capitalists and at some point in time when they reach a certain threshold of clients or debt their rates will go up.
Before you decide on a service you need to ask if one of these consumer-class backup services are right for your personal or business computer.
Or are you looking for something better? Find the answers to the following questions: Is the service reliable enough to protect your critical business files? Most of the offsite backup services in the market place today will have a User Agreement clause that warns you that their service should not be used for "critical business data".
If you are concerned about your mission critical data, then you need to find a business-class service.
Is their bandwidth sufficient? Most of these consumer-class services have strict daily transfer limits, making your initial uploads almost impossible to complete.
A business-class service will provide you with an unlimited transfers that will go as fast as your bandwidth allows.
Will you be able to restore your data fast and reliably? Consumer-class services put file restore requests on a holding pattern and it can take days before your data is available.
Consumer-class bandwidths are throttled so much that your downloads will take days even for a few files.
In contrast, a high quality business-class offsite backup service will restore your files immediately.
How long has the service been in business? Have they received any awards or recognition in the industry? Do they have testimonials on their website from franchise businesses that you recognize and respect? If they are a new service they will have a lot of bugs to work out.
What support do they offer? If you need help can you talk to a real person? Are they available anytime of the day? Most of the consumer-class offsite backup services have little or no support.
A quality service will offer you support 24/7 and provide you with a real person to talk to when ever you need to no mater what the time of day.
Once you find a quality offsite data backup service, you will have peace of mind knowing that no matter what happens to your computer(s), your critical data is always protected.
You may in fact spend thousands of dollars and in the end it may still cost you your business.
A study completed by Price Waterhouse Coopers in 2004 found that 7 out of 10 small business owners that experienced a major data loss eventually went out of business within a year.
Some of the major causes of data loss include: technical disasters from file corruption, worms, viruses, power failures, system updates and hard drive crashes; natural disasters caused from fire, earthquakes, lightning, floods and hurricanes; human caused disasters caused when an employee accidentally or intentionally deletes files, stolen laptops, accidents, etc.
And if you own a laptop, chances are it could get stolen, damaged from dropping, misplaced, or suffer from hard drive failures.
There are a number of different data backup methods available but the most cost effective and efficient method is to use an offsite backup service.
All you need is an internet connection and you can backup your data automatically.
All these services require a fee that can be paid monthly, quarterly or annually.
The nice thing about an offsite backup service is that you do not have to be a technical genius to use the service.
One important thing to keep in mind however is that not all offsite backup services are equal.
Just like anything in life, you pretty much get what you pay for.
A number of bargain basement services have hit the market place these days that sacrifice critical components that make up an offsite backup system that include important bandwidth, reliability and support.
These companies are put together by venture capitalists and at some point in time when they reach a certain threshold of clients or debt their rates will go up.
Before you decide on a service you need to ask if one of these consumer-class backup services are right for your personal or business computer.
Or are you looking for something better? Find the answers to the following questions: Is the service reliable enough to protect your critical business files? Most of the offsite backup services in the market place today will have a User Agreement clause that warns you that their service should not be used for "critical business data".
If you are concerned about your mission critical data, then you need to find a business-class service.
Is their bandwidth sufficient? Most of these consumer-class services have strict daily transfer limits, making your initial uploads almost impossible to complete.
A business-class service will provide you with an unlimited transfers that will go as fast as your bandwidth allows.
Will you be able to restore your data fast and reliably? Consumer-class services put file restore requests on a holding pattern and it can take days before your data is available.
Consumer-class bandwidths are throttled so much that your downloads will take days even for a few files.
In contrast, a high quality business-class offsite backup service will restore your files immediately.
How long has the service been in business? Have they received any awards or recognition in the industry? Do they have testimonials on their website from franchise businesses that you recognize and respect? If they are a new service they will have a lot of bugs to work out.
What support do they offer? If you need help can you talk to a real person? Are they available anytime of the day? Most of the consumer-class offsite backup services have little or no support.
A quality service will offer you support 24/7 and provide you with a real person to talk to when ever you need to no mater what the time of day.
Once you find a quality offsite data backup service, you will have peace of mind knowing that no matter what happens to your computer(s), your critical data is always protected.
