Data has become the lifeblood for individuals and businesses alike. From personal & financial records to customer details, and operational information, we rely on the on the accessibility of our all-important data.
Take a second to imagine the consequences of losing your critical project documents, media, or customer records, the recovery of which would require a lot of time, effort, and resources on your part.
Data loss is more common than you would think and it may occur due to a number of reasons, including accidental deletion, formatting, system failure, or even a natural disaster.
This is why you must put in place robust and secure data backup solutions that actively safeguard your information against unforeseen circumstances. In this blog, we’ll discuss the vital role of data backups and what makes them so important for you.
Understanding Common Causes Behind Data Loss
Data loss can occur due to a variety of reasons, each potentially halting your business operations and putting your vital information at risk. Here are some common factors behind data loss:
Human Error: It is one of the biggest causes of data loss, often caused due to accidentally deleting, formatting, and overwriting files.
Hardware Failure: Not backing up your data can lead to losses due to faulty storage drives, power outages, failing hardware.
Software Issues: Your data can get lost, corrupted, or inaccessible due to software related issues, such as corrupt file system, Blue Screen of Death errors, etc.
Malware Attack: Ransomware, viruses, and other types of malicious software can corrupt, steal, or lock you out of your data.
Physical Damage: Any kind of physical damage to your storage medium due to excessive temperature, moisture, dust or other types of mishandling can result in data loss.
What is Data Backup?
A data backup is essentially a copy of your most important information that you save on a separate storage device or cloud server. You can use this copy to restore data in various data loss events. A backup can include a wide range of data: documents, images, videos, media files, financial databases, configuration settings, etc.
While backing up data is simple, putting it into practice requires a certain level of planning. Here are some key things to consider when setting up backup:
- You need to decide where to store your backups, options include HDDs, SSDs (though they can be costly), flash drives, tape drives (low-cost and ideal for large storage), or cloud storage.
- Software tools or solutions to automate your backups and monitor the system’s performance.
- The scope of your backup – this will define the type of data that should be included in the backup.
- Recovery point objective (RPO) which basically means how frequently should you back up your data: daily, weekly, or monthly.
- Recovery Time Objective decides how quickly you would need to restore your data in case of an emergency.
What Makes Data Backup a Must?
As already mentioned above, data loss can happen in a number of ways, and just because you have been lucky enough to avoid it so far, it does not mean you’re immune to it in the future as well. Here are three main reasons why data backup is a must for you.
Rising Cyber Threats
Cyberattacks are on a rise. In 2024 alone, there were 5,414 reported ransomware attacks globally, marking an 11% increase from the previous year. Sooner or later, a persistent attacker will find a way to slip through your defenses and access your sensitive information.
In some cases, they’ll steal your data and demand a hefty ransom to return it, leading to a messy and expensive recovery process. Seasoned cybercriminals are aware of data backups, and they often deploy strategies that make those backups inaccessible.
This is why simply having any backup isn’t enough—you need advanced technology, robust systems, and trustworthy partners to ensure that your backup data remains available, even in the face of the most sophisticated cyber threats.
To Safeguard Your Business Data
Anyone can face data loss, and smaller businesses are especially at risk of a minor error escalating into a serious problem. They often lack a dedicated backup administrator or robust infrastructure, leaving them unprepared for the immediate fallout from a major data breach or loss.
Additionally, with tighter IT budgets, these organizations become more vulnerable to threats like ransomware attacks, misconfigurations due to user or administrative errors, and even hardware failures.
Given that there are plenty of backup software or services and various storage options nowadays, investing in proper data backup is generally much more cost-effective than dealing with the expense and disruption of data loss.
Avoid Prolonged Downtime
Recovering your data alone isn’t sufficient—you must also bring your entire system back online as quickly as possible. Even a delay of an hour or two can shake your customers’ confidence and drive them to explore other options.
Gartner reports that downtime can cost business owners an average of $5,600 per minute. Another Gartner study revealed that only 6% of businesses hit by a disaster without a recovery plan survived beyond two years.
That’s why it’s critical to have dependable backups capable of promptly restoring your system’s functionality. Problems can arise if your backup contains errors or if the person in charge of the restoration process lacks adequate expertise, which can lead to further delays and disruption of your services.
Bottom Line
Backing up your data should not be very complex, choosing the right backup solutions makes it even more convenient. Remember, the more backups you have, the better protected your data will be.
To keep things simple, we suggest using the 3-2-1 strategy, widely regarded as the best practice for data backups. This approach involves keeping three copies of your data across two different storage mediums, and making sure one of those copies stays offsite to protect against on-site disasters.
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