There are any number of data backup options that are available in today’s market. Some are great. Some are good. And some are largely worthless. The most appropriate data backup system for you will largely depend on two things:

• How much data do you need to back up?
• What type of data loss event are you seeking to protect yourself against?

The relevance of the first question is obvious. The greater the volume of data you have to backup, the greater the capacity of the backup system must be.

The second question, though, is some fairly simple guidelines are often able to help make the “most right” option clear. Data loss events that you seek to protect yourself against may include:

• disaster - for example, the hard disk drive(s) in your file server fail
• corruption - for example, computers on your network are infected with malware that embeds itself in files
• malicious damage - for example, a disgruntled employee deletes records from your accounting system

With an understanding of the above, we can assist you to then consider other important criteria such as backup window, performance impact (computer and network) and total lifecycle cost. You will then be armed with the information required to make an intelligent decision about this most fundamental of business insurances.