What happens if a disaster strikes, the server fails, or a massive hack has occurred? Are you suddenly getting that sinking feeling in your stomach about how to restore your data? More than half of all small to medium-sized business are not prepared in the instance that they need to restore data from a backup. Is your company prepared?
In order to ensure that business information is available in the event of a catastrophe, IT experts encourage business leaders to have a backup plan whether it is a full backup, incremental backups, or differential backups. Not having a backup plan is one of the biggest mistakes, one that could cost business owners their livelihood.
According to Boston Computing, 60% of companies who experience data loss, shut down within six months. Imagine losing your life’s work because you did not properly and comprehensively plan for a disaster like data loss. This nightmarish scenario can be deflected if business owners are proactive and avoid making some common backup mistakes.
Mistake #1 – Having Only One Backup
“Hope for the best and plan for the worst,” should be your motto when it comes to backups. This means not only having a backup plan but having more than one backup. When a disaster strikes is not the time to find out that your backups have been failing. There should be two backups that are not connected and are run through different services. That way if the worst happens there is a safety net for your safety net.
Mistake #2 – NOT Testing Restores
Mistakes one and two go hand in hand. How do you know your restore will work when something happens? Well, the best way to know is by testing it. Too many young companies are preoccupied with getting their business off the ground. Don’t forget to test your backup plan on a regular basis.
Mistake #3 – NOT Protecting Offsite Data
Not to be pessimists, but what happens if your data storage site experiences a disaster such as a fire or a flood? You could lose all of your backups that are meant to save you. Be sure that your data backups are secure. That means not only protecting the stored data but also ensuring that there are replications of that data in the cloud or in another location.
Mistake #4 – NOT Knowing Where Each Piece of Data Is
As a SMB owner, you may feel like you are on top of it just by having backups. While that is a step in the right direction you also have to know where each archive has each kind of data. Otherwise, you are going to spend a lot of time post-disaster figuring out where your most important data is.
Are you confident in your backup plan? Do you know what to do in the case of a disaster? Call M&H Consulting for more information at 1-866-964-8324 or visit our website.
Categorised in: back up, Cloud Services, Computer Support, disaster recovery, IT Consulting Services, Security