Friday, August 8, 2008

Effectively Using Offsite Data Backup Services For Your Business

The increased awareness around data backups is one reason why offsite data backup services have become such a popular option. Storing and protecting your business's data can be critical. Before committing to one of these services it is important to understand the service, the common features, and their pros and cons. By reviewing this information you'll be able to decide whether or not offsite data backup services are the right solution for your data storage needs.

First, you should understand what offsite data backup services are designed to do and how they work. Basically, the data that is housed on your computer, server, or network drive is retrieved and encrypted on a set schedule through software provided by the service. After the data has been encrypted, it is delivered electronically to off site secure storage. Before choosing a type of offsite storage, it's also important to look at the features each service offers.

Most of the storage services available today offer similar features. For one, you can expect the transferred data to be compressed so it will use up less bandwidth as it travels to the remote destination. Some services allow you to choose continuous backup so you never have to worry about losing any saved data. Other services will give you online access to your stored data. With all of these features, there are some clear advantages to using these types of solutions.

There are a few main advantages to this type of service. For example, you do not have to manually backup your data which means you won't have to worry about forgetting. Having a remote storage site is good because if something happens at the original data's location you could end up losing both the original and stored otherwise. Plus, the security used is usually very high. However, there are some disadvantages.

Using these services comes with some drawbacks. For example, if you have low bandwidth it may take awhile for the data to be restored to your computer. Also, if the backup service goes under your data could end up elsewhere. You may also be worried about losing the encrypted password because it is your only key to your stored data.

Overall, there are many valuable features and good reasons to consider these offsite data backup services. Before deciding, you may want to look at price and security issues in more detail. However, this should give you a starting point for that further investigation into effectively and efficiently using offsite data backup services.

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