Some small and medium-sized businesses are looking at the effect Big Data has had on them and how they can tap into it. But many small businesses are not thinking about their local data. Recently, one staffer was asked by one of our office space Toronto tenants what he should do about his slow computer. The person mentioned that his computer had started slowing down and was not working as well as it should have been – making him become concerned about his data storage in the event that the computer crashed. To which he was reminded of the saying “Your data is only as good as your last back-up.”
Having a data-storage plan is just as important as your data back-up plan. You should have a data-storage plan that takes into account how and where your data is backed up. Traditionally, when most small businesses think of data storage, they simply made sure that they had a large enough hard drive to meet their needs for a few years – and added an additional hard drive when too much original hard-drive space was being used. If they wanted a back-up, they would use media such as tape or discs or DVD’s. These methods are still useful and can work, provided that the media is regularly rotated – keeping one set of back-up on-site and another set stored off-site for safe keeping. This method requires someone to physically take the media off-site and remember to bring it back into their Toronto office space.
Many small businesses are starting to follow the current new trend of cloud computing and storing their files and back-ups on a cloud server. But depending on the amount of files and the overall size of their files, this option can be costly. Over the next few days we will be discussing various data storage and back-up options that may work for small businesses that have either office space Toronto, and those who have virtual office solutions that work from home.