What will you do if your computer crashes?
I don’t mean, “Oh it’s getting glitchy, I need to shut everything down and restart it.” I mean full-on will no longer start and everything you need for your entire business is now confined to a hunk of metal and plastic that refuses to function.
Because this happens every day.
And when you’re an entrepreneur or small business owner, it can be catastrophic, because every piece of data you have could someday be unretrievable.
Unless you have a backup.
I don’t mean to sound glib but we’ve seen companies lose their data way too many times.
Like the entrepreneur whose assistant clicked on an attachment in an email, and it turned out to be ransomware. All their files were immediately encrypted, and they couldn’t access anything.
Or the company that let their tech go, then had a major hardware failure and all of their servers went down. No one could log into their computers, which meant they couldn’t ship products or even access customer records to warn people their orders would be late.
The truly sad thing is, they honestly thought they had backups in place but found out they didn’t. No one had verified their data had been backed up because no one was in charge of paying attention to that.
Situations like this result in catastrophic failures for many businesses.
But they don’t have to. The solution is to back up your data on a regular basis.
Here are 3 simple ways to ensure your company doesn’t lose everything, listed in order from basic to most effective:
- Backup your computer(s) to an external hard drive: Most operating systems include backup software to let you do this. Macs have Time Machine, but Windows users can use the software that comes with the drive. Make sure to enable encryption when going this route.
Be aware that external hard drives can fail and take all your data with them, so check yours regularly to ensure it’s working properly.
- Use a cloud backup service: There are many companies that will host your backup data, like Crashplan. Make sure your backups are encrypted end to end and protected with two-factor authentication.
When you sign up for your service, look for a plan that keeps all of your data available to you. Some companies only save the last 30 days or 1 year.
- Store your files in the cloud: Services like G Suite/Google Drive, Box and Office 365 OneDrive let you store all of your files in the cloud, where they can be accessible to everyone else in your company. This makes it easier for teams to share information and collaborate, so it’s a win-win.
- Backup your cloud. All data, even data that lives primarily in the cloud should be backed up to a second (or even third) location too.
Finally, always, always assign someone to check whether your backups are running. That way, if the worst does happen, you still have access to the data you need to keep your business going.
If you’re ready to have someone else manage this for you, schedule a call with us.
We’ll help you keep your data safe and your company’s tech running smoothly, so you can get back to what you love, running your business.
