If you run a small business, one of the things that you will need to put in place for your computer network is an effective backup solution.
Both you and your employees will have important documents and files, and if something were to happen to the computer or server that they were saved on, it could have potentially catastrophic consequences for your business.
But with a wide range of different options, it can sometimes be difficult to determine the best solution for your needs. Here are some commonly-used options by small businesses.
A NAS is short for “Network Attached Storage”, and at a basic level describes one or more hard drives that are connected to the network.
The Buffalo LinkStation Live 1TB NAS is a whole lot more than just a hard drive, however. You can customise it to shut down and start up at certain times, making it very eco-friendly, and it can be used as a TimeMachine backup device for Apple Mac and MacBook Pro computers.
For Windows users, the NovaBackup software lets you backup your computer to this device, and if you want to increase your backup options you can also set it to perform an automatic backup onto another Buffalo LinkStation Live device!
Its size makes it extremely portable, so you could always take it off-site every evening and then connect it back up to your office network the following morning.
Dropbox
For those of you seeking a more accessible backup solution, you should consider using the online cloud storage service Dropbox. The way this works is pretty simple; you install some software on your PC or Mac computer which operates in the background, and then save any files that you want backed up to a special Dropbox folder.
You can have an assortment of files and folders in this Dropbox folder, and as soon as anything is saved or updated on there, the client software running on your computer will automatically sync those changes online.
The business edition of Dropbox offers unlimited file revisions, so if you’ve accidentally saved some changes to a file but want to revert to an earlier version, then you will be able to with no problem, and it’s designed with network users in mind so you can all share any files and folders with each other, as well as having your own personal storage areas.
Symantec Backup Exec
For larger offices that use Windows Server and dedicated backup systems, there is Symantec Backup Exec. This software is fully customisable and scalable, making it easy to design a bespoke backup solution for your needs.
The software is quite advanced, so it should be set up by an IT professional that is familiar with it (which is something you should bear in mind when hiring IT support services).
You can use the software to backup your Windows Server to both a dedicated system on your network, or even devices such as USB hard drives (which is great if you wish to take your backups and store them offsite).