As businesses become more and more focused on utilizing the Internet for their daily needs, backing up all of that important information into the digital world becomes not just necessary but mandatory. In years past, backing up your computer meant saving important files from the day to an external hard drive or small documents on a USB flash drive before leaving at the end of the night. Perhaps some businesses could even consider using Network Attached Storage from Synology, for example. That helps businesses to have more storage capacity. These methods were very similar to the way a home PC user would back up his or her important personal or academic files.

Physical Storage Disadvantages

These methods come with a number of disadvantages, however:

• No physical storage device is going to last forever, according to SearchDataBackup.TechTarget.com.
• Hard drives can potentially fail for any number of reasons, which means that those important documents that were backed up onto that USB flash drive are just as vulnerable to data loss as the original copies.
• Someone could steal or damage the backup-storage device.

Cloud-Based Solutions

Businesses need methods that are more secure and versatile for backing up information than the average home user, states PCMag.com. Services like the data backup at mozy.com provide businesses with benefits that go beyond creating a safe-and-secure backup copy of important files. These cloud-based backup solutions offer huge amounts of online storage space at reasonable rates. A home user with the largest digital video and music collection won’t come close to amassing the amount of data that the average small business will on a regular basis. Cloud-based storage solutions make sure that a business never runs out of the space that it needs to keep its files as secure as possible, according to PCMag.com.

Meets HIPAA and SOX Requirements

While a home user would never need to worry about backup copies of documents being compliant with certain types of regulations, cloud-based backup services offer a means to make sure that data remains compliant in both HIPAA and SOX, notes PCMag. A law firm, doctors office or similar type of practice can’t leave sensitive information about clients lying on a server the same way a home user would transfer a series of personal documents into their Dropbox account.

How Secure is the Cloud?

Cloud-based storage services offer an almost unprecedented level of security, states SearchDataBackup.TechTarget.com. Whereas documents backed up to physical media could potentially be stolen and therefore compromised, cloud-based storage services offer many different types of encryption levels to meet the needs of specific businesses. Many services even offer military-grade protection against even the most severe digital threats.

Less Paper Waste

Home-computer users don’t have to worry about hanging onto certain types of physical files like tax documents indefinitely, states PCMag.com. If a user no longer wants a particular document or media file, they can just delete it. Even if you hold paper copies of these documents, they can easily be dealt with via somewhere like this document shredding Charlottesville company so you don’t have to worry about them getting into the wrong hands. Furthermore, with cloud-based storage solutions, businesses can keep documents for years or even decades at a time without taking up any physical space in the workplace.

Efficiency

Business owners no longer have to train employees how to perform manual backups on a regular schedule or hire teams of specialists to make sure everything is archived the way it should be. Cloud-based backup services, once the initial configuration process is complete, can act in an almost entirely automated fashion. Business owners can dictate exactly which files and directories are backed up and with what frequency based on the needs of the specific business in question. Providing solutions for both personal and business reasons, data backup at mozy.com will help you to focus your time and energy on making sales and not on securing your information online.