What is a Remote Backup Service?
Remote or offsite backup is where you copy the important files on your computer to another location outside of your home or business.I usually talk to my clients about creating a simple disaster recovery plan statement. In that statement we include backing up to a remote location.
Why is it important to use a remote backup service?
Simple…
If a disaster strikes your home or business and you do not have a remote data backup location to store that data, how are you going to restore that data?
God forbid your home or business burns down and is completely destroyed. If this were to happen, and your computers were lost, all of the data you created and stored on your computers will be gone forever! And you won’t be getting it back. There is almost no chance for data recovery in this type of disaster.
That is why it is critical to start backing the data on your computers and storing the data to a location outside of your home or office.
Today there are online backup services where you can securely backup all of your photos, music and important financial records.
I recommend an online service like Mozy to my clients as it simple to use for nearly all computer users. And when you sign up for my newsletter you will be able to learn more about how and what to backup in addition to many more topics on computers and related technology.
Just backing up your data to an external hard drive or recording your files to a CD or DVD is not enough protection. It is an adequate solution for getting your data back quickly if your hard drive crashes, but it will do you no good if the external drive is stored in the same location and is destroyed in the same disaster as your computer.
It is good to back up your data to a data storage drive in your home or office, but the backups copied to that onsite storage device must be stored in a different location from your computers.
In my opinion, the best solution is to use an online backup service that runs automatically. This insures that the data is constantly and immediately being copied to the remote location.
Before the development of Internet based backup services many small businesses would backup their data to digital tape and then an employee or the owner would take the tape home with them.
Tape backup solved the problem of getting the data offsite, but the tape would have to remain onsite overnight for the backup job to run. This left part or all of the company’s data vulnerable to being destroyed in a disaster such as a fire or flood until it was removed the next day.
And then there is the human problem of the employee forgetting to take the tape home or to the bank vault. By using an online backup solution that is automated the security of you files can be assured.