Protect Files with Offsite Storage

Backing up with Soft Copy

Whether you are backing up terabyte upon terabyte of movies, graphics, precious family pictures, financial data or you are the owner of a small business, backing up your files is your best bet in protecting your data. It is not just backing up with cds, dvds, and thumb drives, or any other medium, it is also securing a copy of that precious file at an off-site location.

Having a copy at a location other than your own is fundamental in keeping files safe from fire, or other natural disasters. It is common practice for small businesses with several branches to retain a whole day's transactions and keep them in branches other than where the file and transactions originated. Branch B would be storing files for branch A; Branch A storing files for Branch C and so on. It is simply a very important aspect of risk management.

The technology differs, many business still use tape storage and store them in vaults off-site. Other bigger establishments with volumes of data now rely on replication to a central remote server through VPN. A tailor-fit solution must be studied.

Whether you are an avid movie collector or a businessman, at the end of the day, the question you will have to answer is: Will you be able to restore your files if your computer bogs down tomorrow? The objective is to quickly recover your files. Lesser downtime means lesser losses. An online file storage company will be the solution.

Whatever company you choose, be sure to test the file restoration process. Many large companies go through what is called a Disaster Recovery Exercise, which simulates the loss of their computer systems, including the ability to recover data files and processing systems from their backup. If you cannot easily retrieve your stored data, the backup process may not be worthwhile.

Backing up with Hard Copy

How about your actual paper file copies...how do you store all of them? Files that are tangible, such as paper documents, are called hard copies. Copies of Official Receipts, Invoices, Signed Contracts, Employee Records, are among the typical files a business retains. Those files quickly pile up and require larger and larger storage space. The file retention period for the files can be based on Federal Laws and can vary on the type of document: at minimum 1 year, on the average three. How are you to store them all? If storage space becomes a problem, there are companies who offer archiving and warehousing services for a fee. Again, this will address the risks of natural disasters; the warehouse site being at a remote location.

If you need large storage but want it onsite, a wood file cabinet can make an attractive choice over a metal filing cabinet. You can see a selection a http://woodfilecabinet.org.