7 Effective Ways to Backup Business Data

Your business data is crucial. You know that if you do not secure your business data, it will greatly damage or even end your business altogether.

So how do you protect your business data? What are the best methods for making sure that your data is secure and easily accessible when you need it?

In this article, we will outline the seven best ways to back up your business data.

The Guide to Backing up Business Data

The first thing we want you to do is to gather all your business data together. It may help to make a list. Everything should be organized neatly – preferably in folders. 

You can also have a spreadsheet that lists the entire “library” of your business data and where it’s located (i.e. which folder). Also, you need to make sure that your company’s computers are secure. 

If you need to, we suggest that you reach out to a computer support specialist to make sure your computer is free from viruses and protected from potential hacks.

Once you have organized your business data and secured your company’s computers, here is how you can effectively back up your business data.

1. Cloud Storage

The first option is to always store your business data on cloud storage. Using cloud storage, you can store your data on a cloud server where it can always be accessed as long as you have an internet connection.

The advantage here is that if your business data is destroyed on your physical devices, they can easily be recovered by downloading the data from the cloud.

There are free cloud servers such as Google Drive but also paid options such as SmartVault and Box. Google Drive and Dropbox both also have paid plans.

While cloud storage has excellent security, it can also be vulnerable. We strongly suggest having multiple copies of your business data over different cloud storage services.

We also suggest using any additional security features that the cloud storage platform may have – even if this means an additional financial burden. It is also advisable to have multiple employees have access to the business data on the cloud.

2. Local Backups

You can also have backups of your business data on the very computers that it is stored on.

To do this we would suggest having at least one duplicate copy of a file. So if you had a duplicate of a Word document and then you accidentally deleted the document, you would still have one back up. Or, if you modify the document and are unable to change it back the original form you can rely on the back up to start over.

You can also place files in folders and then compress them as zipped files. This makes them smaller in size and available for you to access when needed.

3. USB Drives

USB Drives are the most portable of all physical storage devices. We suggest investing in a few with as high storage as you can find. Usually, 256 gigabytes is the maximum for most USB drives.

Use these for storing your most sensitive and necessary business data. It is advisable to password-protect and secure your USB drives if the feature is available.

You can also assign USB drives to your employees and make them responsible for backing up their own individual business data on their USB drives.

4. External Hard Drives

External hard drives can be portable and travel-friendly or can be large and heavy. These are made to hold higher amounts of data and will usually have security features such as password protection.

For the amount of data, they can store these external hard drives are relatively inexpensive. We also recommend purchasing hard drives that contain backup software. Many may even have their own cloud network as an additional storage system.

We suggest investing in both travel-friendly external hard drives that can range up to 4 terabytes as well as larger external hard drives (for your desk) that can go up to 10 terabytes.

5. CDs and DVDs

Nope, CDs and DVDs have not yet gone out of fashion! They are a great option for storing additional data. 

We would recommend using CDs and DVDs for storing basic business data that, though essential, is not amongst your most sensitive data.

Things like email templates, instruction guides, and any miscellaneous data are perfect for storing on a CD or DVD. Make sure you label each disc accordingly before storing them away.

6. Laptops

You can use laptops to have an almost full backup of what you would store on a desktop computer. 

It may be best to allocate one laptop for every computer your company owns. The laptop would have a backup of all of the business data that is stored on the computer. Once a week, you could transfer all new files generated on the computer to the laptop.

To maximize storage space on the laptop, we suggest that you compress all files into a zipped folder. To ensure that there is security, you should make sure that all laptops are password protected.

For an additional layer of storage and security, you could invest in a small portable external hard drive for every laptop and transfer all business data to this hard drive in case the laptop ever gets damaged.

7. Data Havens

This is especially crucial as your company’s business data grows and when you accumulate more sensitive data.

A data haven is a server especially built for storing large amounts of data. They usually also specialize in sensitive data, so your business data will be especially secure.

Make sure you conduct your research thoroughly before choosing a data haven. Unlike cloud storage, this is not one that you sign up for automatically. You have to contact the data haven and they will discuss with you how to store your data in the data haven.

Store It Away

Now that you know how to protect your business data and keep a back up of it, it is time to take the steps to keep your data safe and secure.

Before you go, be sure to take a few minutes to read more articles on entrepreneurship and maximizing your business.