So, you are looking into backup solutions? Awesome! Which option should you go with when it comes to where you should store your data? There are 3 main options of how to have your data stored: physical, cloud, or hybrid. We’ll go over the pros, cons, and recommendations to help you with making the right decision.
Physical Locally Stored Solutions:
Uses a physical device on your local network or computer to store your backup data on. This option gives you physical access to the device storing your data. This may be an external hard drive, a network storage device, or a dedicated backup server.
Pros
- No or minimum monthly cost for storage
- Internet connection is not required
- Fast recover times
- Cons
- Maintaining the physical device
- Potential damage to the physical device could lose the backup data
- Potential theft of the physical device could put your company data in the hands of an unknown bad actor
Cloud Solution:
Data is stored on multiple servers across the internet. A great option to help keep your data safe no matter what happens. This could be a private or cloud service provider or even stored at a remote site location.
Pros
- Safe from physical damage
- Accessible even if something was to happen like a fire or hardware failure
- Allows for expanding storage size if backing up a large amount of data
- Cons
- Requires an internet connection to access
- High storage cost
- Slow recovery time
Hybrid (Recommended):
The mix of using physical devices and cloud-based backup solutions. Backups are stored locally oh physical devices and copied to cloud servers.
- Pros
- Have both the performance and recovery speeds of a physical solution with the protection from physical damage or theft of a cloud solution.
- Cons
- Cost of a physical solution plus the cost of a cloud solution.
We strongly recommend using a hybrid model to back up your most critical data as it combines the best of cloud and physical solutions while diminishing their cons. However, the decision comes down to industry regulation and your company’s demands. If you are unsure of how much data your company would need, we are happy to lend a helping hand!