Starting a new business can cause the new business owners all sorts of worries a particular one of course is the threat of data loss caused by a server failure , or indeed loss of critical data caused by a virus attack despite onerous precautions being taken.

For new business owners working hard to build and develop their business, the thought of backup are probably not high on the priority list but any backup solution is better than none. Something as simple as copying critical data to a external hard drive or memory stick once a day or even once a week.

Sure, even memory sticks fail but at least USB memory recovery is a viable option as a simple form of data backup

Even burning files to CD or DVD and storing them in a separate location such as a managers or directors house or even just away for the computer you are backing up is better than no policy at all, but you then need to make sure that you stick to the routine.

Then there is the important job of making sure that you can recovery your data easily from your backup as there is little point in having a system in place only to find that it does not work when you need it most.

As well as the potential cost of attempted data recovery when a backup has been found to fail , there is also the intangible (until it happens) cost of lost business due to system down time, and in extreme cases total business failure if legislation required business records to be kept for any length of time, which can be years.

Sadly for many businesses back up protocols will be left as a low priority until an actual data loss occurs and backup, just like an insurance policy is there for when you need it even though most of the time you do not.

As well as back up to external media offsite storage is also an option, however this methodology can be quite time consuming as data needs to be uploaded or downloaded en-masse which is very time consuming and consumes a lot of bandwidth.

An emerging very effective form of data backup is coming to the fore which is of course online data backup. This simply means that once the initial backup is completed, a protocol runs in the background incrementally backing up new data on a scheduled basis.

Online data backup is becoming a very favourable option for savvy IT professionals and local computer repair companies.

Another benefit for this is if your computer/laptop gets stolen you will have a backup of all your data.

The most important take away from all this is of course if you don’t have a data backup solution in your business get one before it is too late, and once you have one test it to ensure it functions correctly.

And of course an effective backup policy is far less costly than the costs of disaster recovery and data recovery .