External Hard Drive Data Backup

The reason you are performing a data backup in the first place is because your hard drive failed. Are you willing to trust another piece of similar hardware to backup your data? Data backup to an external hard drive is one of the most vulnerable backup medias. Many business owners have opted to mirror their data to an external hard drive for backup.

Consider the implications if you got a virus. Now that same virus that was on your computer/server is now on your external hard drive that you were using to backup your data. External hard drives seem like a nice replacement for the tape data backup process, but in the end do not give you the security and reliability that you need. Hard drives have failed in the past and will continue to fail in the future. It is not a matter of if your external hard drive will fail but when.

Data backup to an external hard drive requires that you physically take the device offsite. What if the device is lost or stolen? Would you need to notify your clients letting them know that their personal information may be compromised? Of all the types of data backup available, backup to external hard drive is probably the least secure. All someone needs to do is hook up the external device with your backup data and upload it onto their computer.

The thrill of a cheap price tag of data backup to an external hard drive will soon wear off when it comes time to swap out the device on a daily basis. What most business owners don't realize is that there is a cost associated with the time it takes to swap out external hard drives. How many business owners remember to swap out the external hard drive every day? It only takes one time to forget to swap out the device and you could lose some data. Automation is not only convenient, but sometimes it is the only way your backup will be successful. When considering the easy cheap way out of data backup and purchasing an external hard drive, consider the cost of losing data and/or going our of business.