Online Backups – What Are Your Options?

It has been interesting to watch the backup market evolve over the past several years.  Backup companies have started to take aim directly at the consumer and advertise their products on television just like other companies advertise cereal or other consumer items. They have made it all look very easy and while those products are great for keeping your family photos safe or keeping a copy of your personal information tucked away in the cloud, they aren’t good for protecting and backing up your business data.  Let me explain why.

 

Almost all backup programs, whether or not they are cloud based, perform file-based backups which simply mean that any files you specify will be backed up.  As you can see, this can work perfectly for photos, documents, etc.  What file-based backup systems don’t address is the computer as a whole.

 

Let’s walk through the scenario of something going wrong with your computer such a hard drive failure. In addition to the important files, you have invested a lot of time getting all the programs installed, setup and working on your computer. Once the hard drive fails you don’t have access to any of the information on it including the programs.  With a file based backup system, you have to start over and reinstall the operating system (i.e. Windows) AND all the programs, and get your email reconfigured and setup—just like getting a new computer.

 

However, with more robust backup solutions an image of the hard drive is performed versus just the files being backed up.  More importantly this image can be restored back to another hard drive just like nothing happened!  You don’t have to go through the process of reinstalling programs, windows, reconfiguring printers, setting up email, etc. One of our clients calls it the “magic backup.” What’s even more amazing is that this image can be sent to the cloud for safekeeping so you have the best of both worlds.

 

Syndeo Communications specializes in providing backup solutions to businesses.  Please let us know how we can help you secure your data and keep your computers safe.