An average small business or organization that values its data spends $1 monthly to back up its data. This budget applies to the low-end businesses, meaning that other enterprises spend more on their data backup. This backup cost includes their Office 365 backup efforts. But how can small businesses back up their data without straining their limited budgets? Keep reading below to discover practical life hacks to save you money on your backup efforts.
Free and Cheap Cloud Backup Options
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If your business data amount is less than 2 TB, you will most likely benefit from this hack. You can exploit some of the free and least expensive options, such as OneDrive, iCloud, Dropbox, and Google Drive. You can use them to enjoy free and less costly online storage. Moreover, they are ideal for syncing your data across various applications and gadgets. Let’s look at what each of them can do for your storage needs.
- Dropbox. This option lets you enjoy up to 2 TB of storage monthly for a mere. Thus, it’s one of the cheapest options on the market. Additionally, it’s excellent for use across iOS and Android devices.
- iCloud. This storage option is Dropbox’s stiffest competitor since it offers everything Dropbox has at the same cost— 2 TB storage for a mere $10 monthly. You can use it to back your data on iPhones, iPads, and Macs. It also works on Windows and Android devices if you are a tech-savvy user who knows how to navigate your way out.
- Google Drive. This option offers you 1 TB of storage for $12 monthly. Therefore, it’s more expensive than the first two we covered. It’s ideal for businesses that use Google’s productivity suite. You can use it across leading desktop operating systems.
- OneDrive. This Microsoft option offers users 1 TB storage at $70 annually or $7 monthly.
Remember, these four cloud storage options also have free storage ranging between 2 GB and 15 GB. For instance, Dropbox offers 2 GB free storage, Google Drive and OneDrive offer 15GB, and iCloud offers 5 GB free storage. So, the four of them combined could give you up to 37 GB of free space. If your file is larger than that, you can use an online file-transferring service FileWhopper that has literally no size limits.
Use External Drives
You can also complement your budget using external hard drives to help you save yourself money. They are easy to use and ideal for integrating with your computer’s built-in capabilities. These drives can store up to 10 TB of data. Moreover, they are cheap and readily available. Also, they are faster in backing up and retrieving information. However, it would help if you stored them safely since they can be stolen or destroyed.
Capitalize on Free Trials
You can also save your business money on storage costs by capitalizing on free trials. They are great for trying out storage tools and programs you would like to use in the future. Besides, such an approach can save you temporary costs while preparing for paid subscriptions.
On-premises Solutions
You can also capitalize on on-premises solutions to save yourself money. These tools depend on devices that are attached to networks (NAS). For instance, you can use Microsoft System’s Center to boost your on-premises solutions. But keep in mind that they have some unique benefits and drawbacks.
For example, they are faster when backing and restoring backed up data. You only need to identify the missing or corrupted files to restore them based on the last day you backed them up. However, you have to mind your retention periods to maximize the chances of restoring missing details. This way, you can have a faster and reliable fallback should your cloud-based storage fail.
Just like all the other options, these solutions are not foolproof and can also fail. For example, a power failure on your premise or natural disasters can destroy your data. Thus, it’s prudent to back up that information on another site.
Data backup is necessary but costly. Small businesses need to look for ways and hacks to cheat the data backup’s high cost. Fortunately, we have many practical hacks that can reduce these costs without compromising your data backup efforts. We hope the hacks we discussed will assist you in saving yourself some critical data backup expenses.
Harry Patté-Dobbs is a content writing and PR newbie at Pearl Lemon Properties. He’s written for blogs, news, and media outlets and loves films, food, and wellness. You can usually find him either reading or writing.
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