You need offsite data backup for business continuity

3 reasons offsite data backup is a must

Data loss kills businesses. That’s not an assumption, either. There are countless examples of companies who have lost their data and closed up shop. In fact, 60% of SMBs who lose their data will close within six months.  Often, failure to utilize offsite data backup solutions ranks high in reasons businesses lose their data.

Backing up your data purely on site is like storing your music on compact disks. It’s been a long time since that made real sense. You’re one broken piece of hardware or one natural disaster from losing it.

Here are 3 reasons why offsite data backup is a must.

Hard drives fail. No, really. A lot.

Are you still backing up your data on external hard drives? We’ve got bad news, if so. Approximately 140,000 hard drives fail every year. If your data is trapped on one of those failed hard drives, it’s gone.

Even if you have an additional backup onsite, there’s a strong chance you’ll still experience some form of data loss. At that point, the amount of data loss you run into will depend on how regularly you update your backups.

The easy solution to this problem is to engage an offsite data backup solution that utilizes cloud technology. Not only does this insulate your data and systems from permanent loss, but it also creates a process where the data is updated in real time, meaning the restored copy will contain every last shred of data logged prior to the onsite hardware failure.

Related: Hard drives vs. solid state drives

Natural disasters happen, and they can take down your entire office.

40% of businesses never reopen after being destroyed by a natural disaster. — FEMA

Data loss has a big effect on that stat. Mother nature is unpredictable, at best. Natural disasters happen fairly often. Should a natural disaster destroy your entire office when you don’t have offsite backups, well…

That’s why it makes sense to follow the 3-2-1 rule. This means 3 copies of your data, 2 local (but on different devices) and one offsite. The makeup of the individual mediums used in this rule might vary, but either way, one copy must be stored offsite.

And as mentioned above, it makes sense for that offsite copy to be cloud-based, so that it stays up-to-date and can be restored easier in the event that disaster strikes.

Offsite data backup is more secure. Much more.

What’s the security like in your office? Maybe you work in a shared building, or maybe it’s just you and your co-workers. But even if you have a fairly extensive alarm system, it likely doesn’t compare to the military-grade security in a data center managed by a 3rd-party provider.

That security includes multiple layers of security to prevent data loss from all types of threats — from disasters to unauthorized access. Some of these facilities are even underground.

Not only that, but data centers have additional layers of protection that stop problems like malware and ransomware before they get into the network.

What’s more, with the right offsite backup solution, you should get multiple layers of backup redundancy, meaning even if your data could be compromised or lost in one data center, it would still be safe and sound at another site.

Related: 3 things your Baton Rouge business should look for in a managed service provider

So what’s your BDR strategy, anyway?

Offsite data backup should be considered standard operating procedure for all businesses. So should a disaster recovery plan to handle the details of how data will be recovered. Most companies seek out professional help for both their offsite backup and disaster recovery planning. It just makes good sense to trust such a critical issue for your business’s survival to a professional.