Alliance Technologies

In the current economy, ensuring your business maintains productivity is more essential than ever. The loss of important data can be very costly, and depending on how integral the data was to your business, you might not be able to afford to rebuild it. Even if rebuilding the data is easy, you’re wasting time and money rebuilding when you could be improving your business.

Data loss can occur for several reasons: hardware failure, human error, software malfunctions, natural disasters, computer viruses, or any number of other reasons. How protected is your data? In this article you’ll learn the advantages and disadvantages of four major backup methods so you can choose which one is right for you.

Backup Strategy

The first step to determining a good backup strategy is to figure out where your data is located. Do you have accounting files on a server? Art assets on a workstation hard drive? Client files in your email program? Any and all of these things need to be backed up. Start with a list.

Once you’ve made a list of the files you need to back up, it’s time to consider a schedule. How often do you need accounting backed up? Every day? Every week? The longer between backups, the more time you’ll spend rebuilding lost data. Determining a schedule that fits your needs is key to a good backup strategy. Once you have a general idea of what needs to be backed up and how often, it’s time to start looking at different backup solutions.

Tape Libraries

Tape libraries offer relatively inexpensive storage after an initial investment. The tape library can be attached to your network and filled with tape media. The tapes can be rotated on a set schedule, depending on much data retention you want. Tapes are also very easy to take offsite to a secure location, protecting your data against an onsite disaster.

Although cost efficient, tape does have some disadvantages. It can take longer to recover data from tape than from other mediums. Tape is also not the ideal solution for partial and very frequent backups.

Network Attached Storage (NAS)

Network attached storage connects to your network and backs up your data using hard drives instead of tape. The advantages of a NAS are many, including faster access to backup data. Lost data can be restored in minutes. If the drives are configured with redundancy in a RAID, your data is even more secure.

The disadvantages of a NAS are largely based on how many users need to access the storage. Since the NAS is essentially a file server, it is limited by its hardware and how many users that hardware can handle.

Storage Area Network (SAN)

A suburb solution, a storage area network is a standalone device on your network filled with hard drives. Unlike a NAS, a SAN is much more configurable, offers internal redundancy to protect against mechanical drive failure, and gives the easiest access to your backup data. With a good backup method and a SAN, your data is very safe. Of course, the best backup solution is more expensive than any of the others, but for businesses that need top of the line backup, a SAN is the only real choice.

Online Backup

Unlike the hardware backup solutions, online backup is not an onsite backup. Instead, by utilizing an online backup service, your data is stored in a datacenter somewhere else. Online backup is a great way to keep your data offsite and separated from your network, protecting against a disaster.

Of course, online backup has disadvantages. Internet speed can greatly slow down the connection to your backup provider. This can affect the speed of both backups and restoration. Depending on the provider and the amount of data, online backup can also be expensive.

There are also other backup methods: external hard drives, flash drives, file servers, disc media, and others. Looking at all the options and finding the best choice for your business is crucial. Protecting your data is one of the most important services information technology provides. Especially in this economy, lost data is something you simply can’t afford.