File Storage & Data Backup
Data is the bread and butter of any business and for some companies, it IS their bread and butter. Not having a solid data management plan can put your business at risk for having the doors open one day and being out of business the next. Have you ever wondered what would happen if all of your company files were to simply disappear? How long would it take you to rebuild those files from scratch? How many of those files are irreplaceable? If you error on the side of caution to those questions, then you need to consider some sort of backup solution for your files, especially with the widespread chance of getting a Ransomeware virus on your computer that can cost upwards of $500 to $1500, paid directly to the hackers who infected your computer to recover the files. And that's with ZERO guarantee of actually getting your files back. I read once that if you don't have 3 copies of the same file, you don't have a backup.
I have several clients that are in the graphic printing business. When I first arrived, neither had any sort of data management solution for their business. One company was holding all of their important files on a handful of USB storage drives that were being used as both backups and to server those files to the production printers. Their idea of backups was to copy files to the USB drives every so often which worked, but it wasn't efficient and there was very little data redundancy. The other company, was also using a USB drive for backups, however they would only back it up maybe once every 3 - 6 months. Otherwise, ALL of the production graphic files were located on the primary design computer. While both companies came out ahead and didn't suffer from any catastrophic losses before I showed up, I was able to talk them into going with a small file server with multiple hard drives that automatically creates backups of the files stored on it. They can now use these central file servers with the peace of mind that when a hard drive fails, there's a lot less chance of losing all of their data. As you may well know, some graphic files are near impossible to replicate from scratch and if either of the design firms were to lose their graphic files, they would have a very difficult time trying to re-create them.
Data Recovery
If you don't have data backups and you run into the problem of a hard drive failing, you also run the risk of losing all of your files. If you run into this type of problem, I can do some very low level procedures to try and recover the data at a low cost. If the hard drive is too far gone for our methods to work, I can send the drive off to a company that specializes in hard drive recovery with a very successful success rate. If this option is necessary, you can expect anywhere from $500 - $2000 or more to recover your data from that one drive. To put it into perspective, a file server with built-in data redundancy might cost most small businesses on the high side of $2000. Most of the file servers I have ordered for my clients, usually run between $800 - 1200 and this will generally accommodate 10 - 15 computers with no problem, let alone a SINGLE HARDDRIVE that might cost $2000 to recover...
At the end of the day, the question you need to ask yourself is whether you're willing to pay for insurance for your data. You pay for insurance for your car in the off chance that something happens. Hopefully it never does, but just in case it does, you've got coverage. By not having any type of backup system for your business, you're guaranteed that something will eventually happen, but the risk is whether or not you can recover from it.
