Backup your business

As well as our technology works these days it's easy to take your data for granted. After all, you're pretty sure that you have backups right? According to a recent survey by Forrester Research nearly two-thirds of businesses have no disaster recovery plan. Simply put, if an essential server or computer dies, or they lose their office to a fire, 66% of companies surveyed could be out of business for good. 

One option is easy for our clients who use Google Apps. By taking advantage of the free Google Cloud Connect tool and your 25GB of storage per person you can seamlessly back up the documents your business can't live without. But what if a computer crashes, is lost or stolen? How long will it take your company to be up and running again after a disaster? Read on to see our experiences with an inexpensive solution involving off the shelf components and some really inventive free software.

CrashPlan is our new favorite backup tool. When combined with an external hard drive, NAS (network attached storage), or free space on other computers in your network you have the most flexible and easy to use backup solution on the planet. For small business this can be a lifesaver.

• Our small business setup consists of a D-Link DNS 323 with two 1TB hard drives. Total cost = $350
• Crashplan Free. = Free
• Setup time for 3 PC's = 15 minutes 
• NetDrive. This application lets you use your NAS as a local hard drive. = $24 per computer
  • Only necessary for NAS. If you use other office computers you won't need this.
• Time to complete the first backup = 8 Hours for 150GB
• Total Cost for TechMinds = $422

For well under $500 we now have a redundant, automated backup system in place for our three office computers.  Because the backups are happening across two laptops and an off-site NAS we know that our data is secure and available even if our office burns down. While that's not something we as business owners like to think about, planning for the worst case scenario isn't something to be taken lightly.

It's easy to schedule future backups, which comes in handy considering a full backup can take hours using NAS. Backups to other computers in your office are significantly faster. If you use a NAS like us just set full backups to run on a Saturday evening. While you're out enjoying another successful week in business CrashPlan will be making sure your bases are covered come Monday morning. Incremental backups are much faster and can be scheduled hourly if you need it.

Now, just because we went with the free option doesn't mean your business has to. Since two of our three machines are portable we didn't think is was cost effective to back up our data to the CrashPlan cloud. After all, it's very rare that all three computers are in the same building.  However, if you want even greater peace of mind, or your data is so vital that you require a better backup solution CrashPlan still has you covered.

We've only been using their service for TechMinds since April, but we've already begun recommending it to our clients.  Simply put this is the fastest, most cost-effective way to back up your computers.  And no matter how reliable technology may seem, disasters can happen to anyone.