A common rule of data safety is 3-2-1:

3) Keep 3 copies of your files

2) Keep your data on 2 separate types of storage

1) Keep 1 copy offsite

An example of this is copying your local documents to a NAS storage system and backing up your NAS to a cloud storage service. Your files will be on your PC, the NAS and the Cloud (3). Your PC and the NAS are counted as different types of storage (2). And, the Cloud backup is offsite (1).

Excluding the NAS or other local shared storage is feasible, but has some disadvantages for all but the smallest of businesses:

• backups can impact your work, especially if you use a laptop

• restoring a file will take longer. For large restores, this can be a big impact

• backing up a single, central storage pool can be considerably less expensive

There are many options out there (here is a Sept 2018 review of ten). DRS can help you with any you like, but our first choice typically Acronis. It offers bare-metal backups of PC’s and servers so you don’t have to spend a day or more reinstalling the base system before you can start your recovery, it’s compatible with common databases and virtualization solutions, and it supports encryption and HIPAA compliance.

For enterprise-level backups, Commvault is popular and very flexible. It’s also usually too expensive and complex for businesses without a dedicated, full-time IT team.

A popular, up-and-coming solution for individuals and very small businesses that operate primarily on PC’s is CrashPlan. It’s simple $10/machine/month plan is attractive and easy to budget. There are a number of common situations for business which CrashPlan won’t cover, but if you don’t need those and don’t foresee them in your future, CrashPlan is a simple, easy-to-use solution.

If you have a redundant NAS and don’t need a backup, you may want to read: Redundancy is Not a Backup.