In our article about how to choose the best backup hardware for your business, we identified some of the viable options for business class backup hardware. Because the hardware is just a container for your valuable data, you also need to examine your needs to select the proper software that you will need to put your data into your backup medium of choice and to manage and restore those backups.
Most businesses cannot afford to lose their data, but often do not put adequate measures in place to protect this critical component of their business. If the building where you operate your business was to sustain extensive damage from a fire, flood, or other damage that caused all of your data to be lost, how would your business recover? If your server was to fail and all data become unreadable, how would you recover? While insurance can help with some costs, it typically will not cover the cost of re-creating the data. Data backups should be an integral part of your disaster recovery plan, along with other items such as recovery of critical documents, phone systems, and reduction of down time due to hardware failure. Data backups consist of two critical components: the hardware where the backup data is stored, and the best backup software that places it there and manages the backup volumes and recovery. In this article, we’ll examine the hardware aspects.