One More Time About the Importance of Regular Backups
By now, you have probably heard many times about the importance of performing regular backups of your data. Nevertheless, with the unprecedented rise in cyber attacks, especially ransomware attacks, on businesses in the US and around the world over the last several months, the importance of having a system of regular backups for all your business data needs to be underscored again.
Your best strategy: 3-2-1 backup system
The basic idea of the 3-2-1 backup strategy is that you should always have access to 3 copies of your data:
Number 1 is the local copy of your data being used on the office PC. Your staff relies on this local data as their everyday primary access.
Number 2 is a local backup of the data you are working with, also stored on a local computer. This 2nd local backup gives you immediate access to the data you might need back. You can use that backup copy in case some necessary data gets deleted, overwritten, lost, or otherwise inaccessible.
Number 3 is a backup copy that is stored securely somewhere offsite, not in the office. That way, if anything happens to your location or the computers at your location, your data remains safe. We have had some users who lost their computers and all their data in an office fire and only having an offsite backup saved them from a disaster and helped them to get back on their feet quickly. While some businesses still use tape-based backup offisite, there are many cloud-based storage solutions that are now easily available for businesses of any size.
Make sure you find a safe and reliable data storage company for your offsite backups, whether cloud-based or physical. Set up a system of automating your backups, so that they are performed regularly and you don’t have to remind yourself and your staff to backup. Once you implement the 3-2-1 backup system, you won’t have to worry about losing your data, regardless of what unforeseen circumstances might arise.
