As you know, much of the business world relies on computer data. Digital information makes it possible for companies to operate in an efficient and productive manner and allows them to grow. There’s no denying today’s digital age offers businesses limitless opportunities to learn more about their customers and seek new sales leads.

Sadly, computers don’t operate without any faults and so if a server happens to “go down” it could take a lot of that valuable data with it! As you can imagine, such consequences could be potentially dangerous for a business. That’s why it is crucial that data gets shadowed or “backed up” elsewhere for those just-in-case scenarios.

There are many ways to backup data; it all depends on which methods are the best fit for each organization. In today’s article, you will learn about the top five ways that modern businesses keep their data safely backed up in case of emergencies.

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1. NAS (Network-Attached Storage) solutions

Smaller businesses will no doubt wish to keep their data safe but haven’t got large IT budgets. A cost-effective approach is to invest in a NAS solution. In a nutshell, it’s a “box” containing one or more hard drives that you can connect to a network. Backup jobs from workstations and servers can store new data on the NAS systems. It’s a brilliant on-site backup solution that is easy to implement.

2. The cloud

In case you wondered, the cloud is essentially any servers or computers connected to the Internet that provides a service. For the purposes of this article, we can refer to the cloud as a backup storage solution. Cloud storage solutions give businesses the advantage of storing their data off-site and making it available to any system with an Internet connection. Some examples of cloud backup solutions include Dropbox and Amazon AWS.

3. External USB drive

Not a fan of saving your precious data on an Internet server somewhere? No problem, there are still other off-site backup storage solutions you can use. Arguably one of the quickest, cheapest, and easiest methods is to use a simple USB drive!

It’s a practical solution if you’re a sole trader and only have one computer. You can store the drive in your home or somewhere other than your usual working area.

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4. Rewritable DVD discs

One of the downsides to storing anything on a hard drive is that backups could become corrupt due to drive failures. It’s important to remember that conventional hard drives are mechanical devices. They only have a limited lifespan before they fail! Backing up to rewriteable DVD discs is an alternative and cost-effective option.

5. Shadow server

Backup up your data is one thing, but what happens if a hardware failure takes out your entire office server? One viable option might be to build a “shadow” server and have it run alongside your primary one. That way, if the first server starts failing, the second one can take over without disrupting your users.

Thanks for checking out today’s article; make sure you implement one of the above backup strategies soon if you haven’t already got one!