Backups for a small business: the 3-2-1 rule
You can buy a computer in a day. You cannot buy back your client base, five years of accounts and your contracts. In small Batumi companies backups often "exist somewhere", but nobody has checked whether they restore. Here is the simple plan I set up in offices.
The 3-2-1 rule
It is the standard that suits a three-person office and a large company alike:
- 3 copies of your data: the working one plus two more.
- 2 different media: for example an external drive in the office and the cloud.
- 1 copy off-site: in case of fire, theft or flooding.
What to back up
- Accounting databases and exports.
- Documents and contracts in shared folders.
- Email, if it is stored only on the computer.
- Client base, spreadsheets, scans of passports and certificates (for crewing — seafarers’ documents).
- Your website and its database — separately from the hosting.
What it looks like in practice
Every night an automatic copy of important folders goes to a network drive or external disk in the office. Once a day an encrypted copy goes to the cloud. Once a month we test: open a random file from the backup and make sure it reads.
An important detail: the backup drive must not stay connected to the computer all the time. Ransomware encrypts everything it can see — including the backup.
Common mistakes
- There is a backup, but nobody knows the cloud password — it left with a former employee.
- Backups were set up three years ago and silently stopped working.
- The backup sits on the same disk as the original.
- "Cloud sync" instead of a backup: you delete a file and it is deleted in the cloud too.
How I help
I come to the office, see where the data lives, set up automatic backups and show the responsible person how to test a restore. Passwords and access stay with the company, not with me. More: office IT support.