Modern businesses are becoming increasingly reliant on electronic methods to store and share their data. This data can vary greatly – from customer details to business documents. The last thing a growing business wants is to be a victim of data loss. It is well known that businesses that lose their data can have a hard time recovering from such events, often leading to the closure of the business. There are different data management methods which can be used, depending on how much budget one business can afford to put into place.
Online Data Storage
Online storage, also referred to as ‘cloud storage’ is a data storage solution which is both convenient and relatively cheap, making it ideal for start-ups and small businesses. Services such as JustCloud and myPCBackup allow businesses to upload their files to the cloud and make those files easy to access. In fact, accessibility is one of the strongest points of cloud storage. Anyone with the right credentials and a web browser will be able to upload and retrieve the files necessary to the running of the business; and doing so will require little staff training. Cloud services use encryption to ensure their servers cannot get hacked so this also makes cloud storage a safe enough solution for any small business.
RAID: The Ideal Solution?
However safe cloud storage may be, the ideal data storage will let businesses take care of all their data needs in-house. This is where RAID data storage comes into play. RAID is an acronym for Redundant Array of Independent Disks; it works as a data virtualization unit which uses a combination of multiple hard drives to spread and duplicate the data. The idea behind this method of data storage is to ensure that the data is multiplied and still available in the advent of one of those hard drives failing. Basically if a hard drive fails within a RAID unit, the data will still be present and accessible on the other hard drives.
Not only does RAID provide a great data redundancy measure, it also serves as a way to improve hard drive performance; making accessing the data faster. If all the data was only present on the one hard drive, having multiple staff accessing that data would slow down that hard drive’s performance. By spreading the data across different drives, it puts less strain on those drives; thus making the performance better.
Right People for the Right Job
When it comes to RAID units, it is worth noting that such method should be supervised by a qualified technician. Using the wrong staff will most certainly lead to incidents of data loss; making the RAID unit to be inaccessible. If any incidents happen, it is best practice to use professional RAID recovery services. Failing to use such services and attempting to fix the issues ourselves will most likely lead to losing all the data on the RAID unit, which could have devastating consequences on the health of a business. This logic of using the right person for the right job can be applied to many areas of data storage, so it is also essential to train our staff on the best practices to use to save and access business data.
Like their bigger counterparts, small businesses should treat data storage with the most care; as the consequences of data can be far too damaging. So whether it is a start-up, a big established business or a smaller business, data storage is something which needs to be carefully planned and executed.
