If you can’t afford for your business to be down for days, take heed of these 3 critical steps that should be in place so you never experience extended downtime, data loss, or corruption. These are simple suggestions to help ensure that your business would be back up and running fast in the event of a data-erasing disaster.

One. Keep an on-site AND off-site copy of your data. You never want to rely solely on an on-site backup. If a fire, flood, natural disaster or burglary happens, you’re out of luck. Plus, it’s smart to have a backup of your backup – especially when it comes to your business’s data.

Two. Throw your old tape-drive backups away (properly, of course). If you’re still using tape drive backups, you could be in for a HUGE surprise when you try to pull the data off of them. Tapes are highly volatile and have a huge failure rate. There are far easier and more reliable ways to back-up your data. If you want some suggestions, please call our office.

Three. Image your server and workstations. Imaging your server and workstations is similar to taking a “snapshot” or “picture” of your hard drive. Not only does it make a copy of the data that is stored on them, but it also makes a copy of all the software programs, personal settings, favorites, desktop icons, network settings, printer configurations and everything exactly as it is on your current computer. This will enable you to be back up and running in hours, versus days, because rebuilding a server that has crashed or been otherwise incapacitated takes time.

If you aren’t sure if your company would be back up and running quickly in the event of a major network disaster, please contact us to see if you qualify for a no-cost mini site audit. If there is a problem, you’ll have the chance to fix it before a crisis happens.