The success and even uninterrupted operation of many small businesses depends on making sure critical data is backed up regularly and securely stowed both onsite and offsite. That said, what’s the best storage technology for the job?

Three primary back-up storage technologies are available for small server back-up: optical, tape, and hard disk drives. The premise of this article is that an external hard drive equipped with server back-up software, when used as an element of a proactive back-up and information security solution, is superior to rival back-up approaches in cost, performance, reliability and ease of use.

Most small business wont amass the terabytes of information processed by large enterprises, but the ability to access business information is just as critical.There are many reasons why data may be lost or inaccessible, including natural disaster, human error, malicious intervention, software errors, data corruption and hardware failures. Whatever the cause, if you’re running a business you can’t afford the interruption. And if it happens, most small business owner probably don’t have an IT department to call to bail them out.

Today, mid-range small-business servers generally come equipped with hard drive capacities ranging from 40GB up to 300GB. There’s a dearth of cost-effective, efficient backup solutions to address these capacities.

For faster and more robust back-up performance, hard disk drive based back-ups offer the only practical solution. But not just any hard disk drive-based backup. Enterprise solutions such as network-attached storage (NAS) devices and terabyte-class disk autoloaders aren’t ideal for small businesses.

Deciding which solution is best for your organisation means evaluating several criteria. Here are a few worth considering:
Simplicity: The more you can remove human fallibility from your back up process, the safer you’re likely to be. People get busy and forget, and they make mistakes. This is why an automated back-up solution has the advantage over swapping media to complete a storage session. And ideally you should be able to start backing up right out of the box. A user-friendly backup solution will let you set it up easily and forget it as it does its job without requiring your attention or intervention.

Performance: You don’t want to twiddle your thumbs through hour after hour of downtime while a system restore is in progress. Restore times expose one of tape’s critical weaknesses. Unlike hard disk drive- and optical disk-based products, which store and retrieve data by direct access, tape is linear.

Data is accessed by first finding the appropriate tape, gathering information from the media’s header area to find out where the desired file is located, and then mechanically fast forwarding, for seconds to several minutes, to find and retrieve the desired file. By contrast, pulling up a given file from a hard disk drive takes milliseconds.

Cost: There are many variables and considerations in the cost of backup devices. The most obvious is related to the hardware: the price tag for the drive and blank media. But don’t underestimate the cost of man-hours to perform backups and manually swap out recordable media. Also consider the complexity of the backup solution. With greater complexity often comes greater cost for installation and maintenance.

Reliability: A number of studies have shown that optical and hard disk media can retain data integrity for decades. Tape storage, by contrast, does not offer anything close to the same longevity. In addition, tape media is known to stretch and can become brittle. Dust and dirt can also destroy a tape’s mechanics, and the oxide within the tape’s data layer is prone to self-demagnetisation over time.

Portability: Whether you elect to use optical media, tape or an external hard disk, never trust your critical files to one physical location. Online data backup companies might seem an ideal solution for offsite backup because the process is usually hands-off and automated, but annual costs can run from $100 to $350 or more per gigabyte.

By now you see that there are plenty of pitfalls and headaches inherent in small server back-up. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a superior solution ready to resolve the shortcomings of traditional small business backup technologies—namely, a large-capacity external hard drive with automated back-up software.

Such a drive, when used as an important element of an overall backup strategy, represents the best mix of performance, durability, style, and value for the small-business user.

An external hard drive back up solution is optimised for maximum productivity, minimal maintenance and low cost of ownership.Because the drive is external, safeguarding data is further assured for those who rotate two or three drives to offsite locations as part of an overall back-up strategy throughout the week.

No solution comes close to matching an external drive for small server backup. USB-based drive back-up used as an element of a total back-up strategy for small business servers is still a fairly new concept. For now, though, consider this: the less time employees spend managing backups and administering restores, the more efficient the operation.
And you can take that to the bank.