On-Site Backup: 5 Reasons You Should Have It

You can’t go anywhere these days without hearing about off-site backup, remote backup and online backup. Ok, that’s not actually true. You can probably make it through a movie, a trip to the grocery store or a game of bowling without hearing about it. In fact, you can probably go pretty much anywhere without listening to anything about data safety, but, that said, these are still pretty prevalent topics among the IT community. Nearly every mention of data backup includes something about getting your vital information off-site and most of it lately seems focused on it.

The buzz around off-site backup is deserved. Moving data to a location far from your main computer system prevents it from burning in the same fire, getting wet in the same flood or getting picked up, torn to pieces and deposited somewhere over the rainbow by the same tornado. Remote backup is a key element of any disaster recovery scheme, but it is not the only important part of a backup plan.

What tends to get overlooked in all this off-site excitement is the importance of on-site backup. “On-site,” you say, “How quaint. How gauche. How 90’s.” With all this ability to compress, dedupe and ship off, why would anyone want something as archaic as a hard drive on their desk or an extra rack in the server room? Why, when I can send my backup to Kansas, would I want it sitting at my elbow?

In the tradition of blogs everywhere, I will answer those questions in the form of a numbered list. Here are five reasons to have and maintain an on-site backup:

1. Cost
Hard drive space is cheap and getting cheaper. Space which used to cost a small fortune can now be had for the price of Gigli DVD (which do you think is the better value?), and previously unattainable storage in the Terabyte plus realm can cost as little as $350. Data center space on the other hand, while cheap for the first few gigs, can quickly spiral toward a high monthly cost. Keeping an on-site copy of all data allows you to manage the amount archived off-site and keep those per-gig prices down.

2. Bandwidth
Depending on the amount of data that needs to be shipped off-site, the state of bandwidth, particularly for smaller organizations can be a significant concern. The time it takes to ship data off-site is directly related to the amount of bandwidth on both ends of the send equation. Companies with growing backup needs, particularly those relying strictly on online backup, may need to invest pretty heavily in bandwidth upgrades. Backing up on-site can lessen the strain on bandwidth and keep you out of trouble with your ISP’s creditors.

3. File Structure
Online backup requires the compression of backup files prior to sending. This amounts to squeezing all of your data into one little box and sending it off to storage. Normally that data is neatly organized, like items in a closet, onto shelves and hangers. If you need a file, prior to backup, you simply go to the shelf where it belongs and retrieve it. However, due to the compression and deduping that often takes place in online backup, finding a file is more like pulling a box out of the attic, unpacking the whole thing onto the shelves and then retrieving the file you need. Not only is it time consuming, but there is some room for error in the process. On-site backup, combined with the affordability of storage space allows you to maintain the structure of your files (presuming your software allows this). So, finding a file is as easy as going to another similar closet and picking it off the shelf. Single file recovery is much easier from an on-site backup location.

4. Recovery
The vast majority, over 90%, of recoveries made from backup are not due to a disaster. Your off-site copy is a backup fail-safe. It is the net below the tightrope. It should only be relied on in the event of a major catastrophe. Most of the time recovery can be made more quickly and easily from an on-site drive location. The main reason for this is download speed. At best most offices will have a T1 Internet connection which allows for the download of 1.5MB per second (on average). This means that recovering a single gigabyte of data will take, in a perfect world, about an hour and a half. However, this is not a perfect world. If it were I would be receiving a massage as I wrote this and all the worlds bombs would turn into delicious ice-cream sundaes. In reality, you will actually be more likely to spend 2 to 4 hours per gig. Can you afford to be without your 5 GB sales database for twenty hours just because a blundering sales person turned the thing inside out through some, still-mysterious process only blundering sales people seem to be able to duplicate? Probably not. So you had better have an on-site copy which will provide you access in minutes.

5. Security
Most off-site storage companies are legitimate, stable businesses. Most online backup companies will take very good care of your data. This is not intended to disparage off-site, remote storage solutions. However, things happen. Companies go out of business and if superonlinebackupforyou.com goes out of business, what happens to your data? What if, despite the array of protections your third-party storage location has in place, a disaster occurs for which they were unprepared . . . a flood in Arizona, a hurricane in Michigan or a prehistoric monster attack in . . . well anywhere? How will you recover? An on-site copy protects against contingencies out there just as an off-site copy protects against disasters at home. A good backup solution makes use of both.

Off-site backup is important, whether you do it online, site-to-site, or though some other transport method. It does not, however, eliminate the need for on-site data storage. The best practice in backup is multi-site, using on-site and off-site storage to protect your critical data.

Can you think of any other benefits of having a copy on-site? What other multi-site strategies do you incorporate in your backup plan?