Why smaller businesses need use Raid to protect customer Records

Small business owners may have resisted using Raid because of the cost, but these days vendors offer several options for small business owners. Business owners who do not have as many customers may want to look into third-party managed server options.  Some smaller businesses use software programs to manage data on their computer server.  Still, software can fail.  This is why some business owners may need server data recovery.

Do smaller businesses need solutions such as a Raid 5 system to protect their data? Many smaller businesses may not be able to afford a Raid 5 system and if they ever need Raid 5 data recovery, the cost of repairing a Raid system and recovering lost data may prove to be too much of a financial burden. However, there are many vendors who can offer inexpensive Raid options for small businesses.

External hard drives may not be Reliable

An external hard drive may be guaranteed to last anywhere from 300,000 to over a million hours, but what does a manufacturer’s equation of how the mean time between a hard drive failure really mean? If the numbers on the hard drive are taken literally, it could mean the disks will run for 114 years. However, the MTBF or mean time between failures only includes first year failures. This really doesn’t tell you how long a hard drive will last. It does give the odds it will break down in the first year.

Higher numbers mean it is unlike you will need external hard disk recovery in the first year. But, the chances a hard drive will fail within the second and third year rise dramatically. Raid systems aren’t as expensive as they once were. Dell offers a system that includes two drives and no software for under £500. There is a full Raid system, with a server and less than six hard drives for under £1200. Though Raid systems used to be expensive, this is no longer the case. Small businesses can easily afford a Raid system, with at least five drives. It may seem it is expensive for Raid 5 data recovery, but it may be actually cheaper than needing server data recovery.

Should businesses use Raid 5 to protect their sensitive data, since it is inexpensive? Have you ever considered using Raid to protect customers’ information? Could having a data loss strategy save small businesses money in the long run if there is a disaster? These are questions companies should answer before committing resources to gather data from Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites.