Before you invest in backups

There is no clever trick in this one, just a handful of decisions worth making deliberately. Before you spend anything on backups, it is worth confirming a few things are already true.

Security is a maintenance habit rather than a purchase, which is why it drifts. It is worth deciding this deliberately rather than inheriting whatever the last person set up.

Prerequisites

• You can describe the outcome you want in one sentence
• Someone owns it after the work is done
• An untested backup is a hope, not a backup
• You have a way to tell whether it worked

Warning signs

Keep a copy somewhere the main system cannot reach. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly. Assume whoever inherits this will have half your context and none of your patience.

Know how long a restore actually takes. Where this goes wrong is almost never a lack of knowledge. The teams that stay on top of it are the ones who put it on a calendar rather than a wish list.

In practice

The realistic threat for most small businesses is automated and opportunistic, not targeted. Three things worth confirming about backups before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Keep a copy somewhere the main system cannot reach — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If you want a second opinion on how yours is set up, ask.