Why Offsite Backups are Critical for Effective Data Protection

Losing data backups can do tremendous damage to your reputation and your finances. We would like to share an unfortunate story to inspire you to ensure proper disaster recovery backup measures are in place. We have a client – let’s call him James for the sake of this piece. James can’t help but remember disaster every time August comes around. Two years ago, before he discovered Clarkes.Team, James nearly lost his thriving, highly profitable business when a devastating fire destroyed his office. This incident claimed a chunk of all onsite storage and backups. He lost thousands of essential files. This painful experience could have been mitigated if he had offsite backups or implemented the 3-2-1 backup strategy. And that is why the rest of this article will focus on the importance of effectively protecting your business data. How Important are Backups?

Your business data is one of your most valuable assets. Smart businesses know this and implement strategies to protect their data. We have saved several businesses from going extinct at Clarkes.Team by helping them set up adequate backups. One way to ensure that your data, files, and content are safe in case of any mishap is onsite backups. Onsite backups, stored within your business premises (like on internal drives or external hard drives), are an excellent first step. They provide instant access to your data and are relatively inexpensive to maintain. However, relying on onsite backups leaves you vulnerable to disasters like fires, theft, or security breaches. According to WebTribunal,

• Forty thousand hard drive crashes happen weekly in the US.
• Every five years, 20% of small and medium-sized businesses suffer data loss due to a significant disaster.
• 60% of businesses going through a data loss incident will shut down within six months.
• 93% of entities will lose their data center for 10+ days and file for bankruptcy within one year of the incident.
• 96% of businesses don’t back up their workstations.
• More than half of businesses don’t have enough budget to recover from data incidents.
• 75% of small businesses need a disaster recovery plan.

Losing data backups can do tremendous damage to your reputation and your finances. It could even put you out of business. This is why you need to be one step ahead. You need a secondary backup site so that if any ills befall your business location, you will have an alternative to restore them. The best strategy to consider when planning backups is the 3-2-1 strategy, which consists of three copies of your data: one original and two backups. The original and one backup copy are stored onsite, and the second backup and third copy are stored off-site/off-premises.  The 3-2-1 strategy helps minimize the risk of failure. We highly recommend offsite backups in addition to onsite backups. You need a combination of both for more potent security. So, what exactly is offsite backup?

What is Offsite Backup?

Offsite backups are stored outside your business environment. The servers and storage devices holding your backups are not within the physical reach of your business and will be unaffected by any disasters that hit your onsite backups. This can be in a cloud-based storage system or a tape system. Offsite backups should contain your most crucial backups. There are different offsite backup options that you can explore, some of which we will cover in the next section.

Types of Offsite Backups

Deciding what kind of backup to employ when storing your data offsite can be difficult. Especially when you have to consider factors like data volume, your budget, recovery time, and the cruciality of the data. Offsite backups fall into three main categories:

• Physical Offsite Backups These backups are stored physically but kept outside your business premises. Instead, you store them in a secure offsite location. An example of physical offsite backups would be External/Secondary Hard Drives. External drives such as USB, SATA (Serial ATA), Firewire, and Thunderbolt allow you to back up data onto an external hard drive or removable media and transfer it to a secure offsite location. External hard drives are typically faster and more convenient for small businesses. However, they can pose incompatibility issues with some types of computers, are easily vulnerable to theft and damage, and sometimes require manual transmission, leading to data transfer errors.
• Cloud-Based Backups (Recommended) Cloud-based backups are backups that are stored virtually in the cloud. Cloud backups are accessible from anywhere if you have an internet connection. Some examples of cloud-based backups are: Public Cloud Services: These are third-party online services you can use to store your business data. You can buy storage space with these services to securely store your data with added benefits such as scalability, privacy, and accessibility. AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud are popular internet data backup options. We must state that most of these services require ongoing costs and can be affected by internet connectivity issues. Online Backup Services: These specialized providers offer dedicated backup solutions with added features like encryption, compression, and automated scheduling. They also improve security and provide expert data management. A good example is SimpleBackups.com. However, they are often more expensive than public cloud services.
• Remote Data Centers You can decide to store your backups in remote collocation centers. Using third-party data centers to store your backup servers can give you extra control over hardware and software configurations and provide you with standard infrastructure and security. Nevertheless, remote data centers require technical expertise and can be very expensive.

Benefits of Storing Offsite Backups

Onsite and offsite backups have pros and cons. For this reason, we advise you to keep both as a supplement for situations where one fails. Below are some of the benefits of storing offsite backups. You now understand that backups are a huge necessity for any business, but proper backup is even more essential. With offsite backups, your data is more secure, protected, and accessible. Don’t wait for a disaster to strike—secure your business’s future today with Clarkes.Team’s cloud backup & disaster recovery solutions. If you are just starting and need clarification about which backup option to pick, we hope this article has helped make your decision-making easier. If you already use onsite backup services, we advise creating a hybrid storage system to store onsite and offsite backups.