Many small and medium-sized businesses discover they don’t have backups on the day they need them. Others have them but have never tested them. This guide explains how to organize your backups in a simple, reliable way.
What can go wrong
- Hardware failures: hard drives and memory cards fail, sometimes without warning.
- Human error: an overwritten file or a folder deleted by accident.
- Theft or loss of a laptop or a phone.
- Ransomware: malicious software encrypts your files and demands a ransom. If your backup is connected to the same computer, it can get encrypted too.
- Vendor problems: a suspended account or a service that stops working.
The 3-2-1 rule
It’s the most widely used recommendation in the world for protecting data, and it’s easy to remember:
- 3 copies of your data: the original and two backups.
- 2 different types of media: for example, a drive or server at the office and a cloud service.
- 1 copy off-site (in the cloud or at another location), so a theft, fire or flood doesn’t take everything.
What you should back up
- The company’s documents and shared folders.
- Databases from your systems (accounting, inventory, CRM, website).
- Business email.
- Your website: files and database.
- Key configurations: network equipment, servers, passwords in a secure password manager.
Note: keeping files in OneDrive or Google Drive helps, but syncing isn’t always a backup. If you delete or corrupt a file, that change syncs too.
How often to back up
Ask yourself how much work you can afford to lose. If the answer is “one day,” you need daily backups; if it’s “one hour,” you need more frequent backups. For most small businesses, an automatic daily backup with several saved versions (for example, from the last few days, weeks and months) is a good starting point.
Test your restores
A backup that has never been restored is a promise, not a guarantee. Schedule regular tests: recover a file, a folder or a full database and check that it works. Write down how long it takes, because that’s how long your business would be at a standstill.
Quick checklist
- Do you have at least two copies besides the original?
- Is one of them off-site?
- Is one of them protected against ransomware?
- Are your backups automatic?
- Does someone check that they run correctly?
- Have you tested a restore in the last few months?
- Are your backups encrypted, with restricted access?
Next step
If you answered “no” to any of these questions, now is a good time to review your strategy. With our IT support and infrastructure service, we design and manage backups with regular restore tests.