Picking a Backup Solution For You | Chilliwack & Abbotsford Tech Support
Backup, backup, backup!
We say it all the time. We mention it frequently in our articles. And, of course, we talk about it to our clients all the time. In our opinion, backing up your business data with the right Backup Solution will probably be the most important thing you can do. Doing so will protect your business against a whole range of natural or security disasters.
Online Backup vs Online Storage
When looking at your online backup solution options, you may be wondering what the difference is between online backups over online storage. (It is an important difference to understand, as it can affect which service you choose to fit your business needs.)
Put simply, Online Storage is just like it says on the tin – storage for your files online! Its a backup solution that performs the function of an additional hard drive… a place where you can store your files separately to your physical computer, and also share them with others. Some services sync files directly from your computer, as your store or alter them. So, if you delete the file from the computer, the file is also deleted from the online storage. Meanwhile, other storage services will only have the version you uploaded in the first place.
Examples of storage services are DropBox, Google Drive, OneDrive (included with Office365 Business Plans), Sync.com and iDrive.
In contrast, an Online Backup takes a copy of your files and stores them online in a secure repository. This allows the service to keep copies of files for days… weeks… even years after they have been deleted from the computer.
Other premium backup solutions take things to the next level. These services take a snapshot of your hard-drive and replicate everything on it. So, it allows you to recover your entire computer or server. These services are concentrating more on securely protecting your data and giving you the chance to restore everything in the case of a theft (or ransomware attack), office fire or computer failure.
Examples are BackBlaze, Carbonite, CrashPlan and SOS Online Backup For Business.
So, which Backup Solution is right for you?
Well, there are lot of factors to consider on this one. Every business is unique, so you need to look at how your business operates to make that decision. Questions about backup solutions to take into consideration are:
- What kind of files are you dealing with?
- How many machines do you need to backup?
- What is the size of the data you need to backup?
- How often do you update your data?
- What is your budget?
- Do you have an industry compliance to consider? (Financial, medical, country-specific etc)
