3 Telling Statistics about Different Data Backup Solutions

A business that manages its data efficiently will be well positioned to handle growth. One of the most crucial components of data management is ensuring that everything is backed up properly; an increasingly difficult task as businesses use more data every year. Implementing a cost-effective and reliable data backup solution should be the goal of every IT professional.

In a recent survey by Iron Mountain of 230 IT workers, it was discovered that data loss is a top concern for 2014, and opinions about how to best protect against data loss are varied. From this study, here are three statistics about data backup that you will want to consider for your business.

64% of Companies Store Their Data with Cloud-based Services.
When it comes to data backup, storing data to the cloud is one of the most secure ways to protect your business from data loss. With cloud-based data backup, your files will be stored offsite to a secure data center. This will safeguard your data from the many risks associated with storing backed-up data in-house.

Risks to an in-house IT infrastructure include scenarios like natural disasters, power outages, data theft, disk drive failure, user error and more. Cloud-based data storage gives your business peace of mind from having to worry about these risks, and with only 64% of companies utilizing cloud services, cloud computing is sure to grow by leaps and bounds in 2014 as more businesses migrate to the cloud.

85% of Companies Rely on Disks to Keep Their Data Safe.
Backing up data in-house on a disk drive is the most popular data-loss solution. Backing up with disks requires having a data backup device installed on your company's network. This is a reliable solution, but it means that you're responsible for maintaining the disk drive and you'll need to do the regular chore of testing the backed up copies of data. This is one reason why more organizations are looking to cloud computing because the IT company hosting the data perform these maintenances. With our solution, we diligently test your backups.

53% of Companies Store Data on Tape
One of the oldest ways to protect your business from data loss is to backup with tape. Backing up with tape will get the job done, but it's the most labor intensive solution, requiring daily changing of the tapes. Also, tapes are not the most reliable solution because they deteriorate over time. Many businesses are sticking with tapes because they have the perception of tapes being the cheapest solution, but considering the time it takes to maintain a tape backup solution, and the fact that cloud services cost less every year, backing up with tape is quickly being replaced.

One takeaway from this survey is that these statistics don't add up to a perfect 100%, meaning that many businesses are taking advantage of multiple data backup solutions. This is a solid data backup strategy that will give your business extra protection in the event that one of your solutions happen to fail.

Our favorite data backup solution to protect a business from data loss is a Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) tool. BDR works as a local backup solution because it will store your data on a disk drive that can be easily accessed, and it also backs up to the cloud so that your data can be retrieved if something were to happen to your IT infrastructure.

A BDR solution from Directive is remotely maintained and monitored by us; we test the backed up copies and we handle the data recovery in the event of a data loss disaster. Give us a call at 607.433.2200 to equip your organization with a backup solution tailored to meet the unique data needs of your business!