Data on a hard drive appears to be just a bunch of tiny magnetized areas on a round metal disk.  It barely even exists.  …All the more reason to replicate the information somewhere else for safe keeping. 

That’s what backup is.  Computers don’t differentiate between the data that is important to you and the junk that just builds up over time. There are also many ways data can become corrupt.  Important data can be erased accidentally just as easily as junk can be deleted intentionally.  The computer doesn’t care. 

Because of its many moving parts, hard drives have one of the highest failure ratings of all computer components.  That’s not good considering a hard drive is where all of your information is stored.  There is a very specific way to protect against hardware failure, but I’ll save that for another time.  Like me, I’m sure you know many people who have suffered through a hard drive crash.  It’s not pretty.  “72% of businesses that suffer major data loss disappear within 24 months”, says DataDepositBox.com.  The bottom line is if you’re not backing up and staying on top of it, you’re being reckless with your data and your business. 

As a business owner, here are some basic questions you should ask to get the assurances you should have when it comes to your data.

The Big Questions:
-What am I backing up?
-How often does my data get backed up?
-When was the last time my backups were verified?
-Do I have a copy of a recent backup off-site?

When I say, “your data,” I’m referring to the information contained in your computers.  What that actually means to you is contingent upon what you use your computers for.  Most businesses use their computers for one or more of the following things:

-Creating and Storing documents (Word and Excel),
-Bookkeeping (QuickBooks)
-Sending and Receiving Email correspondence (Outlook)
-Saving Client information
-Business Automation

If this information is suddenly lost, most companies would be devastated and could even come to a halt.  How much business could you get done if you lost your data?  What about all those projects you’re currently working on?

 There are so many ways one could lose access to information, but I’m not going to bore you with lengthy speculations and hypothetical situations.  What you really need is clean statistical information based on real word experiences.  To learn more about the real threats to your data, you can visit this page from DataDepositBox, a partner of mine that provides an easy Folder-Based backup solution for very small offices and home office applications.

Data Loss Statistics

If you think you might like to subscribe to this service, please sign-up through the link below so I can get the credit for the referral.

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Your data doesn’t have to stay lost in the event of a disaster.  If you still have your hard drive your data can be recovered even if you don’t have a backup!  In most data recovery scenarios, the hard drive must be sent out to a recovery lab to retrieve the information.  This is a very costly process and could also be lengthy.  Data recovery labs feed off of urgency and disaster, and their rates prove it.  The more you want that data back and the faster you want it, the more it will cost you.  In my experience, data recovery jobs average about $2,000 and take about a week.  But it could cost much more depending upon the configuration of the hardware and the urgency in which you need the data.  The bottom line here is: you’re out of your data for about a week and $2,000.

For those of you that do have a backup in place: When was the last time someone verified your backups?  Verifying backups is just as vital as doing the backup in the first place.  Many businesses will implement a backup system and expect that it performs its job from day to day, but never check to see if it’s actually working.  I can’t tell you the number of businesses that thought they had a backup and ended up not having much of anything at all.  That can turn a bad situation worse very quickly.  Those of my clients that have decided to take advantage of my Easy Backup service know that every morning I get an email that tells me how the last night’s backup went.  How nice is that?

What happens after a disaster?  What’s your recovery plan?  I have one for each of my clients.  If you don’t have one, you need one.  If the Navy didn’t have a plan for how to repair the different areas of the ship in case of disaster, what would happen to the ship?  I can guarantee you it wouldn’t get back to functioning as quickly and maybe not at all.  Get a plan!… I can help!

To learn more about what features a robust backup system has, check out the description of my Easy Backup service.

 © 2009 Engler Information Technologies, Inc.