These days we are all so dependent on computers that we just can't do without them. If you do have a flood, fire, robbery or some other kind of disaster you can always buy new computers, but the data is uniquely yours.
That means that you can't get the data anywhere else. Recreating all the invoices, emails contact details, sales history, etc, is well-nigh impossible - that's why so many businesses go out of business when they lose their data.
Once your data is gone it's gone! So it's up to you to make sure you have a backup copy. Without a current backup, the cost of recovery and the time required are so great that few businesses survive the experience. The irony is that data backup isn't complex or even expensive if you outsource it to IT Support professionals who know what they are doing.
Can IT Support Restore Your Data backup?
If you are not backing up all the critical data on your network - or if you are, but have never tested your data backups - you are at high risk of losing irreplaceable company files and information.
Most IT Support Companies recommend that you do a backup every night and perform a regular test to ensure that your backup system is working. It's not uncommon for backup files to become corrupt and useless, and you certainly don't want to wait for a crisis situation for your IT Support Company to tell you that your backup wasn't working.
Which Is The Best IT Support Service - Tape Data Backup or Online Data Backup?
You've probably heard some IT Support Companies say that tape backup is dead. Yet others will say that tape is the only backup that's reliable enough for business use. The reality is that there is no 1-size-fits-all solution - in other words it all depends. On some occasions tape data backup is right solution and on others online data backup. Each has a place.
The main strengths of each are:
Tape data backup
Better and more cost effective for data volumes of over say 50GB
Better for archiving data for months or years
Online data backup
Better and more cost effective for data volumes under say 50GB
Does not archive data for weeks or years
Tape Data Backup Is Fastest For Large Data Volumes
The main disadvantage of tape data backup is that it's manual. Your IT Support Company is unlikely to be at your office each day. That means that somebody in your company must remember to change the tape each night. Ideally it should be taken it off the premises each day so that it is in a different location from the original data. However the main advantage of tape backup is that the process of copying a data onto a tape is very fast. This means that it can cope with large data volumes better than the relatively slow online backup.
Tape Data Backup Is Cheapest For Large Data Volumes
With online backup you pay per gigabyte of storage, so the cost soon mounts up. However once you have purchased a tape drive you can back up as much data as you want at no extra cost.
Online Backup Is Automated
The speed of your broadband limits how much data you can back up overnight. Assuming that you have an average number of changes during the day you can usually backup a database of 50Gb to 80Gb - any larger than this and the transmission of the changes may not finish by the next morning. And that will slow your network down. However, most small to medium-sized businesses will have less data than this unless they have a large number of images.
Online backup for servers, PC's and Mac's is simple and easy. Unlike tape backup, your daily online data backup is entirely automated. Your IT Support Company can set it all up for you.
That means that you can't get the data anywhere else. Recreating all the invoices, emails contact details, sales history, etc, is well-nigh impossible - that's why so many businesses go out of business when they lose their data.
Once your data is gone it's gone! So it's up to you to make sure you have a backup copy. Without a current backup, the cost of recovery and the time required are so great that few businesses survive the experience. The irony is that data backup isn't complex or even expensive if you outsource it to IT Support professionals who know what they are doing.
Can IT Support Restore Your Data backup?
If you are not backing up all the critical data on your network - or if you are, but have never tested your data backups - you are at high risk of losing irreplaceable company files and information.
Most IT Support Companies recommend that you do a backup every night and perform a regular test to ensure that your backup system is working. It's not uncommon for backup files to become corrupt and useless, and you certainly don't want to wait for a crisis situation for your IT Support Company to tell you that your backup wasn't working.
Which Is The Best IT Support Service - Tape Data Backup or Online Data Backup?
You've probably heard some IT Support Companies say that tape backup is dead. Yet others will say that tape is the only backup that's reliable enough for business use. The reality is that there is no 1-size-fits-all solution - in other words it all depends. On some occasions tape data backup is right solution and on others online data backup. Each has a place.
The main strengths of each are:
Tape data backup
Better and more cost effective for data volumes of over say 50GB
Better for archiving data for months or years
Online data backup
Better and more cost effective for data volumes under say 50GB
Does not archive data for weeks or years
Tape Data Backup Is Fastest For Large Data Volumes
The main disadvantage of tape data backup is that it's manual. Your IT Support Company is unlikely to be at your office each day. That means that somebody in your company must remember to change the tape each night. Ideally it should be taken it off the premises each day so that it is in a different location from the original data. However the main advantage of tape backup is that the process of copying a data onto a tape is very fast. This means that it can cope with large data volumes better than the relatively slow online backup.
Tape Data Backup Is Cheapest For Large Data Volumes
With online backup you pay per gigabyte of storage, so the cost soon mounts up. However once you have purchased a tape drive you can back up as much data as you want at no extra cost.
Online Backup Is Automated
The speed of your broadband limits how much data you can back up overnight. Assuming that you have an average number of changes during the day you can usually backup a database of 50Gb to 80Gb - any larger than this and the transmission of the changes may not finish by the next morning. And that will slow your network down. However, most small to medium-sized businesses will have less data than this unless they have a large number of images.
Online backup for servers, PC's and Mac's is simple and easy. Unlike tape backup, your daily online data backup is entirely automated. Your IT Support Company can set it all up for you.
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