Protect Your Business’s Data With A 3-2-1 Backup Strategy?

Data that is only stored in one place is in a precarious position. Hard disk drives fail unpredictably. Solid state drives are more reliable, but even less predictable and it may not obvious when they have failed. But most data losses aren’t caused by hardware failures. They are caused by human error: software bugs and accidental deletions are more common than hardware failures.

It’s only a matter of time before data that exists in one place is lost, which is why IT professionals use a 3–2–1 backup strategy. There should be three copies of the data, two of the copies should be local, and at least one copy should be stored in a different location.

Three

Data that exists in one place is ephemeral: it can disappear at any moment. Adding an extra copy is safer, but there is a lot that can go wrong with a single backup. Both drives might fail and no backup system is 100% reliable. Most IT professionals have horror stories in which backup systems failed without anyone noticing: when the primary storage medium fails or the data is accidentally deleted, they find that the “backups” are corrupted or empty.

More copies is better, but three is the minimum to reduce the potential for data loss to an acceptable level.

Two

Two of the copies should be local. The primary copy and at least one backup should be kept at the same location — although they should ideally be on separate machines.

Local backups are useful because they can be accessed and restored quickly. If data is accidentally deleted from a local machine, the backup can be restored in seconds or accessed from the backup.

One

One copy of data should be kept in a different location.

Local backups aren’t enough to keep data safe. Storage devices in the same location can be affected by the same incident: floods, fires, and thefts don’t discriminate. Backup drives connected to servers over a local network can be targeted by cyber attacks against the server — this is particularly likely to happen with a ransomware attack.

To be effective, an offsite backup should bed automatic, comprehensive, and up-to-date. Manual offsite backups are not reliable or secure. The offsite backup should contain a complete copy of important data and it should be as up-to-date as possible.

Until recently, reliable offsite backups were hugely expensive and only within the reach of large corporations. But with Steadfast Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity, all of your company’s data can be backed-up to secure cloud storage in an enterprise-grade data center.

Steadfast is a Silver Veeam Cloud Provider, and our cloud backup services are based on Veaam’s industry leading backup and replication technology. Our team of disaster recovery experts will work with you to design a custom offsite backup strategy tailored to your needs.

To find out more about cloud backups, speak to a disaster recovery and business continuity expert today.