SMB Tech Mistakes - Backup? What backup?

Equipment failure is inevitable. Prepare for it and you won't suffer the consequences.

There's a funny moment in Spaceballs when the villains realize the Self Destruct Cancellation button is broken and Dark Helmet curses "Even in the future nothing works!"

For all our technology, there is nothing on earth that can stop a malfunction. As we become more reliant on technology, we are far more subject to tech disruptions.

Smart businesses will take all necessary steps to protect themselves from disaster.

A 2007 Carnegie Mellon University study found that disk drives fail 15 times more often than manufacturer's estimates. The research concluded that hard drive failure rates average at 4% and peaked at 13%!

When you consider the importance of the information stored on your computers, these rates become unacceptable. Four percent may seem like an incredibly low rate of failure until you consider what that failure could cost you. If you are lucky it might just cost you a few months of work. If you are unlucky it could doom your business.

I remember one customer who refused to invest in any backups or redundancy. The hard drive that stored most of the files for their marketing department crashed. They spent $10,000 on a data recovery service which wasn't able to recover anything. Plus they lost months of work which led to that year's catalog being delayed by 4 months. I estimate the entire fiasco cost them upwards of $250,000 in lost revenue and labor. The backup solution we specified for them would have cost $9,500.

Now with the cloud you have no more excuses. With cloud data storage running at about $1 per gigabyte there's just no reason to ignore backup. I'm not saying you need to backup every last shred of information, just the critical data that matters to your business survival.

How long can your business survive if critical data was lost or damaged? What kinds of legal troubles can you get into if you lose vital customer information? And how would all of this impact your bottom line? If none of these are a concern for you, then you don't need backup. Otherwise, stop dragging your feet and get a backup running today.

Give me a call if you have questions. I will be happy to recommend a cloud backup solution for you today. (305) 423-9574

R-Squared Computing | Lou RG | Nearly Free IT | Firm Wisdom

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