7 Reasons Businesses Don’t Back Up Their Data

Our computers are a bigger part of life than ever before. We shop, work and play using our computers. They've replaced stereos, encyclopedias, even the mailman. They've become journals, photo albums and canvases for our art.
But computers aren't perfect. Files become corrupt, viruses infect our systems and hard drives call it quits, taking our precious data with them. Lost data can cause a major crisis in a business or worse, lead to business failure. So why do so few of us practice data backup?

Reason #1: Costs too much

With a wide selection of options on the market, data backup has become increasingly affordable for protecting a company's files. More important, compared to the costs of data loss (expenses related to loss of productivity, decreased quality, disk recovery costs, lost intellectual property, etc.), backup solutions are one of the most cost-effective technologies an organization can make.

Reason #2: Takes too much time to manage

There are backup solutions that run automatically and continuously without requiring any intervention from the user. Good, high-performing backup software runs automatically in the background and continuously without slowing an organization down. Technologies of backup software, like data-deduplication (a method of reducing storage needs by eliminating redundant data) and incremental backups, reduce demand on CPU resources, network bandwidth, and storage costs.

Reason #3: Not going to happen to me

You've had your computer this long and haven't had problems so far so why worry about computer backup now? Data backup is about protecting your data's future, but with computers, it isn't if you will crash, it's when you will crash.

Data loss events happen more frequently than you might suspect.  This can be the result of human error (forgetting a laptop in a cab, accidentally deleting a file, saving over the wrong file), natural disasters, theft, viruses or hardware failure. Having automatic, continuous backup is like insurance you buy, hoping you'll never need it, but relieved to have when (not if) something unfortunate happens.

Reason #4: Forget to deploy it

Offsite backup is automatic and continuous. This enables businesses to focus on their business, not on remembering to back up their data. With offsite backup, daily email reports are sent verifying the success and size of your backup.

Reason #5: Too complicated

Like preparing for a natural disaster, most of us understand how important data backup is, but don't know where to start. Unlike the “old days,” when the process required tape and complicated schemes for backing up data, testing and verifying the backup archive, it is not so today. Offsite backup solutions can be setup quickly and then forgotten. Data can be restored with a call to the help desk.

Reason #6: If something happens, we'll just use a data recovery service

Data recovery services are useful only when there is a computer to recover. They are no use at all if the PC is lost or stolen. Also, these services are very expensive (costing in the thousands of dollars), with no guarantees that all, if any, of the data will be recovered. And how will the business limp along without the files in the weeks it could take to get them back? Why chance it?

Reason #7: We'll copy to an External Hard drive

Copying is not the same as a backup (it's much more cumbersome and is an inefficient use of storage). Also, if something happens to that drive, it's as if the files were never backed up at all. That's why there are offsite backup solutions that offer the ability to back up online for secure off-site protection.

Offsite backup is simple, secure, affordable and easy to deploy. It’s just a phone call to Northern Computer. We’ll install the software and schedule the backups. You’ll receive daily emails verifying the success of your backup. With all of the reasons for not having a backup plan in place covered and the understanding of the importance of backup, you can make the right decision to protect your company’s valuable data.


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