In your business, you likely have lots of digital records. Unless you are using Google Docs and cloud services for everything, you probably have lots of digital files. Keeping those safe and backed up is important. If your computer was stolen or crashed tomorrow, would you have everything you need?
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External Hard Drive
The most basic backup is to use an external hard drive. You can get an easy to use, 1 TB hard drive for less than $100.
Manufacturers offer both small, portable drives and larger, desktop drives. For most businesses, a desktop drive is the best option, as it stays in place and offers scheduled, automated backups of a single computer. The largest external hard drives on the market today can range up to 12TB, though those are much more expensive than the smaller models.
Network Attached Storage (NAS)
Network attached storage, or a network hard drive, is the best backup option for multiple computers on a shared network.
A NAS costs more than an external hard drive, and takes more work to configure. You can choose between cloud NAS drives, which can be accessed from the internet, or local drives only accessible on your network. You can choose all-in-one drives, or customizable setups that allow you to add additional HHDs (hard disk drives) to your NAS.
The costs can be dramatically different based on what you need. For my online businesses, I am planning on buying a 2TB NAS. The most popular drives are built by Western Digital and Seagate.
Dropbox
Dropbox is a great solution for storing files across multiple computers, but it is not a great option for backing up a full computer. I use Dropbox for my blogging and web projects, as I can quickly get to my files anywhere.
I also use it as a second backup for my accounting records from Quickbooks.
Online Backup
If you want to back up everything in the cloud, you can look to online backup providers like Carbonite or CrashPlan. For a monthly fee, those services will back up your entire PC to remote servers. If you are worried about loss due to fire or break-in, these may be the best options for you.
Even if you keep a local backup, an online back up could be a great idea. Redundant backups are important, particularly for customer and financial records. Online backups are great for “just in case” peace of mind.
Be Smart and Secure
Whatever you choose, make sure to be smart about it. Always backup important files. Hard drives fail, computers crash, accidents happen. Ensure your business can go on without too much hassle by keeping your files backed up and safe.
How do you back up your files?
About Carson Derrow
