How To: Back Up Your Data – Before It’s Too Late

Always remember to back up your data. It could save your business. Our free guide is available to download.

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Digital solutions have become an integral part of the day-to-day running of businesses, from storing your company’s financial documents and data to providing services or products to customers. Maybe you use a Customer Relationship Management system or have invested in an ecommerce website to sell your products.

These systems and documents are essential to the operation of your business, and if they were no longer available to use, what would the impact be on your business? This is a very important question to ask, as data loss is probably a lot more common than you might expect

Common causes of data loss

Data loss can happen through a number of causes, such as accidental data deletion, system failure, natural disasters, viruses and a problem that is growing at a rapid rate – cyber theft. In 2022, Cybercrime cost UK businesses an average cost of £4,200, with 39% of all UK businesses reporting a cyberattack.

Another startling statistic is that almost 70% of small businesses close within a year of suffering a large data loss. We don’t want to cause you sleepless nights, but we do want to make sure that you have adequate protection for your business, in the form of data backups.

Backing up your data with an effective backup strategy could save your business from extreme disruption, financial costs and even reputational damage.

How to get started with backing up your data

What company data to back up?

The first step in ensuring you have the correct backup solutions in place is to identify what data you want to back up. This should include all your important files, including financial data, employee data and customer data. You should also identify all the databases and applications that you use within your business. Essentially, every file or system that you need for your business.

How often to back up my company data?

The frequency of backups will have a large impact on how quickly you are able to recover lost data and how much data you are able to recover. This frequency is known as the Recovery Point Objective, and a backup period of no longer than 24 hours is recommended for small businesses.

Which backup solutions to use?

There are many different choices of backup solutions and tools and finding the right one for your business may seem like an overwhelming task. However, you may already be familiar with a number of solutions.

Our expert advice is to use the 3-2-1 approach:

Store your data in 3 places
Using 2 types of storage
With 1 copy stored off-site

What are the most popular backup solutions?

Hardware appliances
Software solutions
Cloud services
Hybrid solutions

Which type of backup is best for my business?

Once you have chosen your preferred solution(s), another decision to make is which type of backup:

Full backup
Differential backup
Incremental backup

The key differences between these options are the amount of data that is copied at backup, how long it takes to make a copy, and how long it takes to recover data.

You might be thinking that this is sounding a bit complicated? Backing up your data doesn’t need to be complicated, and we are here to help. You can download our full guide – Back up your data to get more information about the steps to follow.

Alternatively, give us a call on 0141 255 1617 or drop us an email at info@acu-it.co.uk so we can help you to get started with saving your business from a data loss catastrophe, through a high-quality backup strategy.