Importance of Keeping Offsite Backups
While all types of backups are important to a business and can certainly help in situations varying from a simple lost file to a natural disaster or crypto attack, there is one type of backup that is often the most under utilized: offsite backups.
What are offsite backups?
There are a few types of offsite backups, but the two major types are cloud backups and backups on physical devices not located on-site.
Cloud backups sometimes get overlooked due to either the perceived cost or a lack of understanding about the cloud. This edition of Tech Talk News will focus on physical offsite backups.
In most situations, it is recommended that clients have at least three USB or hard drives used for backups so that one can be kept offsite at all times.
What are the best practices?
This rotation is designed to protect more against a natural disaster than an IT one. If a fire, tornado, flood, or other such event were to affect the location, any backup drives in the location are also highly likely to be lost. This is why one should be kept offsite at all times.
Often times, organizations do not see the value in regularly rotating their backup devices, but this is a concern. If something were to happen and these drives were only swapped once a month, the backup available to restore the systems could already be months old. This would mean all work done in those last few months is lost.
This is why a different drive is suggested to be plugged in frequently with the drive that was previously plugged in moved to an offsite location. The drive to be plugged in should always be the oldest backup.
Should you have any questions about the process, are interested in purchasing backup plans or drives, or would like to learn more about a program for keeping your backups safe please feel free to call our office.
We strive to look out for the best interest of our customers and their procurement in the IT venue. Be it hardware, software or service related, we want to guide you in the most effective manner possible.
