Backups are more important than you ever imagined

Backups aren't something you do to improve your business a little. You do backups because without them, you risk going out of business!! Yes, they are that important.

What would happen to your company if you lost your data? What if you lost all your email and your contact information? What if you lost your contracts and your accounting information? How long could you stay in business?

According to the research, you are very likely to go bankrupt and lose your business.

Strategic Research Institute:

Companies that aren't able to resume operations within ten days (of a disaster hit) are not likely to survive.

National Archives & Records Administration in Washington:

93% of companies that lost their data center for 10 days or more due to a disaster filed for bankruptcy within one year of the disaster. 50% of businesses that found themselves without data management for this same time period filed for bankruptcy immediately.

Research by Computer Economics:

American business lost more than $7.6 billion as a result of viruses during first six months of 1999.

"The Cost Of Lost Data", David M. Smith:

6% of all PCs will suffer an episode of data loss in any given year.

Home Office Computing Magazine:

30% of all businesses that have a major fire go out of business within a year. 70% fail within five years.

Mozy Online Backup:

Every week 140,000 hard drives crash in the United States.

OK, So what am I selling?...

Well... nothing. I'm going to suggest ways that YOU can do your own backups. But backups are a lot like your tax return: if you have a little training or experience, you can get by with doing it yourself. If you don't and you just "wing it", you can mess it up and risk very serious consequences.

So these recommendations are for those that can follow them competently!! If you're not sure than you can, then my recommendation to you is to hire a professional. It won't cost much and you can't afford the risk.

Here are some general guidelines that make sense in many common business scenarios.  Keep in mind that your business is unique, so this might not be the best solution for you.

What to backup

Here are common things to back up:

• PCs and Laptops - either backup the entire hard-drive image, or backup the C:\Users directory (for Windows), or the /home directory (for Linux and Mac).  Backing up the entire image is best.  Then you'll be sure to have everything, and you can recover from a hard drive crash in about an hour, rather than after a day of having to re-install the operating system and all the programs.  If you're unable to do this, backing up the user or home directory will most likely include your critical data.
• Servers - backup all of your companies shared files. If you run email services, backup your email. If you run a CRM, ERP, or other data-based applications, backup the databases.  Note that depending on your database system, you should do a database dump or backup, rather than simply making a file-level backup.

How often to backup

Backup tools

Offsite Backup Services