Data is now considered one of the most valuable assets to any company in the digital business era. Companies store all kinds of softcopy data, such as reports, documents, files, digital products, training data, invoices, and many others. The way we take care of our data speaks powerfully about our business continuity. Nowadays, when a business fails to take care of its data, it can lead to various problems.
Data is lost all the time, and many companies aren’t ready for that. Studies indicate that 93% of companies that don’t have a plan to recover their data close shop within a year. This reality foreshadows how important storing data properly and having a plan in place in case data gets lost is to avoid business failure.
Many practices can help prepare a business ready for the worst-case scenarios of data loss, corruption, or misplacement. Here are five tips for any business to better store business data and retrieve them when necessary.
1. Store a backup on various storage places
The first step to better data storage is to keep multiple backups of your files in various storage places. The rule of thumb is to have at least three copies of a file stored into at least two types of data storage methods. The storage methods you can consider are the following:
- Cloud-based (Online) Storage. Services like Microsoft Outlook, Google Suite, Dropbox, and Amazon AWS are examples of cloud-based storage. These storage facilities are online data banks where teams can upload files and data into. Check out this FinancesOnline list of digital asset management software examples to see which cloud-based storage works best for you.
- Offline Storage. Offline storage consists of tangible storage devices that one can store information into. Every week, up to 140,000 hard drives crash in the United States, so while offline storage on a flash drive or hard drive is still a best practice, it shouldn’t be the only form of storage.
In essence, it’s often best for companies to store files in both an offline and online storage facility. Companies might also sometimes provide an intranet network to have staff save a copy of files into their devices and laptops and another copy into a central drive that they can access through a localized network.
2. Ensure top-level cybersecurity
When looking at data storage options for businesses and considering online versions of storage, data security might arise. Large fractions of files happen because of cyberattacks. Unfortunately, 21% of business files usually remain unprotected.
When switching to having both offline and online file management facilities, ensure that your online facility is adequately protected. Use a service that provides two-factor authentications as another layer of file protection. Securing files can go a long way for a company and often takes very little effort and time to set up and maintain so it won’t be too much of a hassle for employees and organizations. When possible, provide data security training for your staff to teach them the best practices to secure company information the right way.
3. Have a Data Retrieval Software
One scenario might always be when a company has one or two files lost due to unforeseen circumstances (like data corruption) or even human error (i.e. accidentally deleting a file with no backup). In these cases, having data storage and retrieval methods in computers of designated staff can become a lifesaver for teams.
SysVita is a great example of file retrieval software. It helps with email data recovery, file recovery, password recover, cloud backups, and email file conversions in Outlook PST and OST files. The solution also supports all devices, whether PC or Mac.
4. Automate data migration
Migrating information into different platforms can be tricky business, especially when employees are dealing with hundreds or even thousands of files and data points at a time. To avoid the costly issues of human error, companies can migrate that process by using software that can take care of the data migration for a user.
Before deleting any files that you’ve migrated, ensure that you have another copy of the information stored somewhere just if there were any issues with the migration. Zipping files and putting them in an archive folder or storage system helps.
SysVita OLM Recovery is a fabulous example of file retrieval software for macOS. It helps with recover Mac Outlook OLM emails file and conversions in Outlook PST with restoring in Cloud Server & Web-Based accounts. The solution also supports all devices, whether PC or Mac.
5. Factor in disaster and fortuitous events
One other factor that can cause data loss and people don’t think of often is catastrophic disasters. A storm, earthquake, flood, bush or forest fire can be the end of physical office space at any given time. On top of office and property insurance, it pays to have data insurance too. And the best insurance is an offsite backup. This backup can either be an offline device in another location or a cloud-based storage facility, as those are never affected by local disasters
Protect Your Data, Protect Your Business
When a company protects its data, it isn’t just protecting files and information. It’s protecting its business interests. A company’s data is an extension of its operations, and most of it is vital to keeping a company breathing. So be sure to protect your data at all times by safely storing and backing up data and having a data recovery system whenever you’ll need it.