Why Every Business Needs a Backup and Disaster Recovery Plan

It is easy to assume data loss will not happen until it does. A single failed hard drive or accidental deletion can put weeks of work at risk.

Backups are not a single copy

A proper backup strategy keeps multiple recent versions of your data, stored in more than one location, so a single point of failure cannot take everything down at once.

Disaster recovery is more than backups

Backup and disaster recovery are related but different. Backups protect the data itself; disaster recovery is the plan for how quickly your business can get back to operating after something goes wrong.

• How long can your business realistically operate without access to its systems?
• How much data could you afford to lose if you had to restore from yesterday's backup?
• Who is responsible for actually running a recovery if it is needed?

Answering these questions is usually the starting point for building a plan that matches your business, rather than a generic checklist.