News

A list of the latest news for GBData, online backup and remote backup services

Free Online Backup

Free Online Backup

Get your attention?

You never get something for nothing, right?  Wrong!

Here at GBData we offer every potential client a free 30 day trail account, during which you can backup up to 80G of data.  This trial uses the full working software, and is not cut back in any way.  The trial is absolutely free all we ask is your name and email address, not to much to ask, is it?!  To try it all you need to go is go here and enter these details, after which you will be redirected to the download page, and from here you can download the correct software for your operating system.  Install it with our famous no hassle 3 minute install, and you can then sit back, content that your business data is being protected by the professionals.

If at the end of the free trial you do not wish to continue on to a paid scheme, then that is fine, your data limit will be automatically reduced to 500M, and you may continue to use this service free of charge, for ever.  We mean this, we will never charge you for this service, it is free to use, to continue to protect your essential data, and this includes free software updates too!.  How and why do we offer this free online or remote backup software?   We believe in putting something back into the business community, and this is part of this.

Backup to Hard Drive

With the constant fall of prices of external hard drives, more and more companies are using these inexpensive units as their preferred method of backing up their business data.  To go with these units you will need some form of backup software, and if you wish to backup multiple computers, either several licences, or software that can backup your PC’s over your network.

Good business disaster planning should include the eventuality of not being able to gain access to your business, and this is an issue for this method of backup.  Also should the hard drive fail, you have lost all of your backups, and all hard drives fail, mobile units often sooner because they are treated with less respect.

Another major problem with this method of backup is that rarely is the data encrypted or access protected, like it would be when stored on the native PC, with even basic user verification/password.  This breaks the rules of the data protection act, and recently the authority’s have been coming down much harder on businesses that are breaking the rules.

However, are you happy to trust all of your business data to a unit costing say £60?  What would be the cost of replacing the data?

GBData online backup or Remote Backup software will take al of these issues away.  By installing the software on all of the PC’s requiring backup, or simply installing it on one PC and mapping the other computers through the network, all of your cmputers will be protected.

Our famous five minute install will leave you covered, and our 80G/30 day trial lets your try the service free from worries or commitments.

OpenDNS launches FamilyShield

FamilyShield

FamilyShield

We at GBData have long been supporters of OpenDNS, however they have just launched a new free service aimed at protecting families from the darker side of the internet.  This service, called FamilyShield redirects all DNS queries to their own servers to decide if the site is listed and if so, should it be blocked.  The sites are voted for via its own users, including additions and therefore whilst not foolproof, is a great way for the community to take an active role in the selection of which content is apppropriote for their needs, on a case by case basis, as well as deciding if the proposed categories are in fact correct.

For families it is great, because most broadband connections are now made by router, by making a change here you can easily protect every PC in the home.  It is not foolproof, and advanced users can sign up for the normal OpenDNS service to take greater control.

We whole heartedly support the launch of this free service, and recommend all families to change to this service now.

Laptop Theft – An Insider’s Guide To Not Becoming Another Statistic

When laptops were first available, they were treated with great care and attention. To be given a laptop by your company marked you out as someone special.

Today, the laptop is commonplace. They are no longer the possession of high powered business executives or IT developers. Everyone from geeks to the occasional home user is moving away from desktop computers to the laptop.

There are many reasons for this. Price, processor power, increased battery life, footprint on the desk and the move to an increasingly mobile lifestyle, are just some of them. The laptop has now become so common that it’s “just another device” to many people. As a result, people have become careless. This is evidenced in the fact that almost every week there is another story of a lost or stolen laptop making the headlines. Often these stories only appear because the person or their job is considered “high profile”. Military chiefs, intelligence officers and even developers with personal credit card information have all been “named and shamed” yet the procession of losses goes on.

Some of the cases are down to acts of simple theft. Putting a bag containing a laptop on the ground while buying a railway ticket or leaving the laptop in the boot of a car is two of the common excuses. Having it stolen while in a pub or restaurant, leaving it on a train, plane, in a taxi are also very high up there on the agenda. It seems that the laptop has succeeded the umbrella in terms of the object of property people misplace the most.

So how bad is it? Recent figures from UK police forces show that over 34,000 laptops are reported stolen each year. This is almost 100 per day and only deals with those that are actually reported to the police.

What does it cost? That’s a question with no definitive answer. You can insure a laptop for around 7.5% of its value so a £1000 laptop would cost you just £75. Most insurers will look at the model and need a copy of any invoice. If you later add software to the laptop you will need to provide additional information to your insurer and, depending on the cost of the software pay an additional premium.

What about my data? Good question. What’s your data worth to you? When did you last back it up? Basic insurance policies as described above WILL NOT include restitution of data. These are generally part of a separate insurance policy for your business. A quick call to your insurance broker will establish what these premiums are but generally expect to pay around £100 for data restitution costs of up to £5000. This is only for restoring your data eg the cost of re-keying data or recovering a corrupted hard disk. It does not compensate you for unique data that you might have lost such as software under development or notes about customers. Many insurance companies will simply point out that you should have backed that data up.

A recurring theme in the recent stories, such as the US-based MCI employee whose laptop contained the personal details of 16,500 employees, is that identity theft is the key goal of laptop thieves. This is more likely to be a secondary gain to the thief rather than a major target and no police force or insurance agent would offer any figures to cover professional targeting of laptops for this purpose.

The same can be said of the number of senior executives whose laptops get stolen. Generally, they are seen as highly attractive items as they are top of the range technology. While there is an increasing market in Intellectual Property, there are no statistics kept as to whether such information is actually traded and for what sort of money. It is more likely that such information will be stolen by hackers.

Protecting against laptop and data theft would appear to be relatively easy but, in a business sense, is rarely so. Some basic steps for employees to follow in order to protect laptops include:

  1. Leave the laptop unattended in a public place.
  2. Leave a laptop on a desktop at lunch, while in a meeting or overnight.
  3. put a laptop in hold baggage.
  4. In a restaurant or bar, always ensure that the bag containing the laptop cannot be snatched. Put the shoulder strap under your chair leg.
  5. You need to visit the bathroom, take your bag with you unless you are with a trusted colleague who you have asked to “mind” your laptop.
  6. Bags might look like the ideal place to keep you laptop but they stand out a mile. Try and keep the laptop in a less obvious bag such as a briefcase.
  7. In a hotel, store the laptop in the room safe, even when just going for breakfast, dinner or to use the gym. If the room doesn’t have a safe, take it to the front desk and have the hotel store it for you.
  8. Leave the laptop or the bag containing the laptop on show in the car, even if you are in the car with it. Many a bag has been snatched through a car window while stopped in traffic.
  9. You need to leave the laptop in the car, conceal it in the boot.
  10. Leave it in the boot for long periods and never leave it overnight.

These might all seem like commonsense items but for every single entry in this list you will find people who have lost their computers by not taking precautions.

What about data? Protection of corporate data is critical today. You could argue that employees should not have sensitive information on their laptop when out of the office. While this would be nice, the reality is that the laptop is a working environment. This means that the person carrying the laptop needs that data in order to do some form of work.

So what can you do?

  1. Strong but memorable passwords. – Too many people write down passwords because the password policy is unworkable. You could dispense with conventional passwords and use Pointsec PicturePIN which consists of a series of pictures so that the user simply points out the pictures corresponding to “his” story. Not only is this system just as secure as traditional passwords, but it’s easier to remember with no chance that you’ll be tempted to write your “password” down.
  2. The data on the disk. – This will ensure that even if the disk can be accessed, the data is secure. Make sure the encryption is seamless and quick, and managed centrally, so that the user cannot circumvent it.
  3. Users about the risks of carrying too much data and do regular audits to ensure that non essential data is deleted. – It’s too easy to just “leave” data on the computer after it is no longer needed. An audit policy design as part of a risk assessment process will reduce the impact of data loss and ensure you know exactly “what” has been lost.
  4. A backup mechanism that makes it easy for users to take copies of data daily while traveling. – GBData online backup software can be installed, and runs automatically, all that is needed is an internet connection, common place nowadays.
  5. A Laptop Protection Policy. – This is a document that outlines the responsibility of the user and how they should treat their laptop and data. It is no less important than any other corporate email or data policy and, as such, should be part of the employees contract of employment.

What you can do, however, is make it harder for thieves to get hold of devices through the simple security steps outlined above. By encrypting data and good use of passwords, you can also ensure that the only value to the thief is from the sale of the laptop and not your data.

The ultimate protection is the installation of GBData backup software, so that should the worst happen, you can be confident htat all your data is safe.

Have you tested your backup solution?

It sounds obvious, but over 85% of businesses have not tested their backup solution by restoring and checking their backed up data, in the last 6 months.  There can be all sorts of reasons, from a new folder or data structure not being added to the list to be backed up, to administrator passwords being changed, and the backup software not also being updated.  These are common mistakes we see every day, but are not obvious unless you actually run a check by trying to restore the data, and checking it is complete and verified.

  • It is a fact that backup tapes fail when restoring, and if the media is over a year old, well!  If you have to use a backup tape, please do follow the guidelines listed here:  Gartner and Storage Magazine reported that 34% of companies, who backup their data to tape, never test their backups. They went on to say that 77% of those companies, who did test their backups, found backup failures.  If these figures transfer across then 77% of users that do check their data also get failures, but accept them?!!!
  • It is also a fact that DVD’s and CD’s that you burn yourself, have a much shorter life than you might believe.  If you have to use this media, do not use CD-RW or DVD-RW, use one only CD-R and DVD-R, it is proven that the re-writeable disks have a significantly shorter life.
  • It is a fact that if you simply copy your company data to an external hard drive, you are most probably breaking the data protection act!
  • 7 out of 10 firms that experience a significant data loss that cannot be restored, go out of business within a year.

In fact most forms of backup away from GBData, have very serious down sides.  GBData remote backup software on the other hand, is able to offer a Hybrid/combined on-site/off site solution that takes this problem away.  It checks your data both as it is transferred to our servers, and again every week on our servers.  However, do please try a restore on a regular basis, because of the problems listed at the start of this article, new folders, passwords etc can cause problems.

If you really believe that your backups are sound, would you be comforable erasing everything on your hard drive right now, and restoring it from backups?

SMBs are getting serious about data protection

According to a recent Symantec Corp. (NASDAQ: SYMC)-sponsored survey, SMB customers are “getting more serious about their information protection” and therefore, channel partners need to be ready for the “huge opportunities” that will present themselves in this space, said one Symantec executive.

Monica Girolami, a senior product marketing manager at Symantec, said one of the key findings from the 2010 Information Protection Survey was that “SMBs are really getting serious now about their information protection. This is exciting for us because this shows that the awareness that we’ve in addition to other vendors and partners, have been trying to drive, is finally starting to pay off. But we still have a ways to go.”

When asked to rank their top five business risks, survey participants rated data loss and cyber-attacks as their top one and two respective risks, followed by traditional criminal activity, natural disasters and terrorism.

In addition, Girolami said survey respondents noted that their top IT improvement areas were solutions involving backup and recovery, disaster recovery and security. Likely due in large part to the consumerization of IT and more workers now bringing their own devices into the workplace, security and policies around them are becoming more important, Girolami said.

“People are sharing information more freely now, whether that’s through things like laptops or PDAs,” Girolami explained. “It becomes more of a question of ‘Where does the critical information reside and what can be done to protect it?’ While all organizations face these same types of challenges, SMBs don’t have the dollars to put towards these (efforts), or the necessary education in the areas they’re challenged in.”

While 31 per cent of survey participants said they back up their data on a daily basis, 47 per cent said they don’t. When asked why they don’t back up their data, 39 per cent of businesses said it “never occurred to (them) to do so.”

For the channel, this becomes an opportunity to get out and talk to both new and existing customers, Girolami said. Partners should help their customers better understand the importance of having Internet security guidelines and policies and make sure that customers are aware of the latest security risks and threats. Partners can also help customers with disaster recovery plans and testing them to make sure everything’s in working order.

“Partners should ask their customers questions like, ‘What are you doing today to ensure you can recover your systems in the event of a disaster?’” Girolami advises. “Partners can then start looking at disaster recovery plans with their customers to provide them with more of a value-add.”

On the technology side, customers should implement a data loss prevention (DLP) solution, in addition to having backup and recovery protection to better secure critical business information from cyber-attack, human error or natural disasters, she added.

Channel partners can offer their customers Symantec’s Protection Suite Advanced Business Edition, which Girolami said is an all-in-one, comprehensive security solution suite which includes capabilities such as endpoint security, messaging security and backup and recovery protection.

“Partners can now have an overall discussion around information protection and bring a comprehensive solution to the table instead of just talking about point products,” Girolami said.

You can read the full article here:

Hybrid Online Backup


As a small to medium sized business (SMB) grows and its technology investment evolves one of the biggest challenges for that business is how to protect its growing IT infrastructure. While there is a wide array of options available, Hybrid Backup for the SMB is a solution that allows for a simple installation and allows the SMB to get back to focusing on the business while at the same time knowing that its data is safe, secure and available.

The SMB is a unique segment of the market for data protection and one that has been traditionally under-served. The SMB typically does not have a dedicated IT staff or if it does it is a very small one, often one person, wearing many hats. They often have a very close relationship with an IT consultant or reseller that is intimately involved in the technology decisions in the business. They have limited access to an off-site storage facility in the case of a disaster yet are often the most at risk if a disaster does occur. Another factor unique to the SMB market is that most, especially those started in the last five to six years, are almost 100% dependent on technology to operate. In many cases – unlike older businesses – there simply is no manual workaround to conduct business. The
technology must stay up and running, and downtime literally stops the business. As a result recovery of even a few hours or worse waiting a day for a new server to be brought in can be very costly. Ironically SMBs may be more time sensitive to recovery than even the largest enterprise data centre, and the costs incurred by not being able to do business are felt more directly because of its smaller size. Finally, the SMB must focus on the business, not on technology, so the solutions selected must be simple, reliable and cost effective.
Traditional On-Premise Backup
Traditional on-site backup solutions are lacking when trying to address the above challenges and requirements. Either these solutions for the SMB are typically enhanced consumer user backup applications or they are scaled down enterprise backup applications. In the first case, the backup application provides only  limited functionality and does not typically provide protection for applications that might be in use at the time of the backup. In the second case, scaled down enterprise applications are too complicated and require too much attention to be appropriate in the “business first” mentality of the SMB. In both cases, the on- premise applications do not address the need to move the SMB’s data to a secure offsite facility so it can be protected if a disaster occurs. Disk backup, for example, is a very common backup method for the SMB. Many SMB’s entire data set can fit on one or a few hard drives.

The challenge with disk backup is removing the data from the facility; as a result, the backup is often left in the building sitting right next to the server. Not only is this data not secure from a disaster, it often does not provide much capability for a historical type of
recovery. For example: it’s tax time, you need to look at a spreadsheet or database as it appeared last year, and for some reason that version of the file is no longer available on your active hard disk. With many disk-to-disk-only solutions, your ability to go back more than a few weeks in time to recover data is limited. On-premise solutions often use agents, small software applications that send data to the backup server or device. These agents can be expensive and can cause stability issues with some servers. They can cause problems in any size business. The agile and often fast growing nature of an SMB means that servers are added or can change very quickly, and having to install and test agents for compatibility is something with which the business would rather not deal. Additionally a company has to be careful that it does not break the rules of the  data protection action by copying data to another media, that is then accessible without a password.

Off-Site Backup (Remote or online backup)
This style of backup encrypts your data, and compresses it before sending it to secure servers via the internet. Online backup was developed to address many of the issues that on-premise backup faces. This service has a high degree of safety built into it, by securely storing your data at a remote location. It is important to note that most online backup solutions that offer an SMB option are exactly that: an option. Most online backup solutions started with the home user or consumer as their primary customer and for the smallest of SMBs, the one-man show, this was initially fine. As the business grows, the SMB needs more. And while some of these consumer offerings have added a “pro” or business option, they for the most part have merely amounted to more storage space. When a server needs to be completely recovered, ALL of its data either needs to be slowly restored across the Internet, which could take days, or your data can be downloded to a DVD or mobile hard drive and couriered to you. When a server fails and the business grinds to a halt is when you need recovery to be simple and fast. It is not the time for having to go through special steps or procedures, or worse, waiting for the UPS delivery person so you can bring your business back online.
Hybrid Backup for SMB’s
This is a combination of the two previous methods, combining the best of both.  With this method your data is still encrypted and compressed, but as well as being transmitted to secure off site storage, a local copy is also created, normally on an external hard drive.  Because the data has been encrypted, the rules of the data protection act or followed. GBData software allows you to operate in Hybrid mode, by simply adding an external hard drive, and making a small change in the software configuration. In most cases when disaster strikes, what needs to be restored is the most recent copy of data and typically all or the large majority of that data needs to be restored. Restores that are months or even years old are not typically the result of a server rebuild need, they are in response to a specific request – an accidentally deleted file or audit for example, and as such are typically small in size nor do they have the time pressures associated with a server failure. As a result retrieving these from the GBData servers is more than fast enough. Using this method you get the security of your data being stored in a hardened off site location built for the job, as well as a local copy, that should the internet fail, will still allow you to retrieve your data. SMBs are focused on their business, and while many leverage and are dependent on technology they don’t have the time or desire to be technology experts. For them technology is a tool; they do not want it to become a hobby. As a result, many small businesses outsource their IT services or at least rely heavily on an IT reseller to help with supporting their technology investments. Interestingly, many small backup applications and almost all online backup applications exclude these valuable assets from the process. GBData Hybrid Backup for the SMB addresses the shortcomings in both on-premise backups as well as online backups. It provides a simple, fast, cost effective way to protect data locally while leveraging the off-site backup for long-term storage. It allows SMBs to focus on growing the business as opposed to growing their IT staff.

Online data backup recommended to SME’s

Online data backup services have been described as an ideal solution for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

In an article in Processor, George Crump looks at the various advantages of cloud storage and how it could help SMEs.

He reminds readers that one of the attractive aspects of the technology is that, as well as being provided on a pay-as-you-go basis, it is also scalable so that the capacity grows as the business needs more online data backup services.

Mr Crump adds: “SME’s consider cloud storage as an area to store backups for disaster recovery.

“An internal backup infrastructure is needed, but for those SMEs that don’t have an ideal disaster recovery target, a cloud option could be ideal.”

What are the top threats to my data?

Below is a list of those top threats that every company faces to its computer data and systems.

  1. Hardware failure/loss – Computers fail, whether it be a failed hard drive, corrupt memory, or simply a dropped laptop.
  2. File deletion – With the ease of use of modern windows networks, it is all too easy for users to delete files, or even whole directories.  Also added to this is simply saving a file as a wrong name, over writing a file that the user wanted to keep.
  3. Viruses, Trojan horses, malware etc. Businesses as well as inexperienced home users can scum to these unpleasant programs.  It is impossible for anti-virus writers to keep completely up to date with their virus definitions, and most users only update these definitions only once a day.
  4. Failed backups – most backup tapes last at most little over a year.  They can be damaged even by transport in a car, DVD’s and CD’s often fail during writing.  Most users that do backup, do not check their backups, typically because of the extra time that this takes.
  5. Lack of access – Take the recent Buncefield disaster as an example.  The surrounding businesses may have had a backup tape, but many could not use it as they had no access to their property to remove it.
  6. Theft – Laptops are so often stolen it id frightening.  Yet amazingly few laptop users backup as often as desk top PC users.
  7. Deliberate/malicious damage – employees that have been dismissed, or simply unhappy computers have been known to delete essential files.
  8. Size of data out grows the backup system - DVD’s hold typically 4.7 Gig, and at most 7.5 Gig.  Tapes may go to 20 Gig with reaching the expensive systems.  Most users have data requirements in excess of this.  This is caused by many factors from users increasing dependence on PC’s, to such things as digital camera’s increasing in mega-pixels.
  9. Existing backup systems cannot backup all files – Whether it be open files, or complex file systems such as SQL and exchange, most backup regimes cannot backup anything other than simple closed files.
  10. Failing to remove backups safely off site - Most users that backup at most remove backups infrequently, and not using shielded containers.  These backups are often useless, but this is not discovered until too late.

Data loss hurts most

FOUR German volunteers are counting the cost after laptop computers containing thousands of personal photos were stolen from their Bayswater home.

The full story can be read here:

It is an awful loss that these guys have had, however as a lesson, it shows that laptops are just as susceptable to dataloss, however it is caused.

At GBData we often hear of laptops being stolen, especially so while using the London underground.

To help mitigate the loss our advice is to install our backup software, which might not even cost you anymore, as you can install it on as many PC’s as you like, wether they be servers, desktops or laptops.

Carl.

Breaches Of Data Security

In the modern business world, information is king, providing the means to undertake the business. So the question begs; why are some companies fundamentally lax with their information?

The full story can be read here:

Using GBData remote backup, you can rest assured that your data is not only protected, but also encrypted to 256Bit, which is a level higher than banks use.

This encryption also extends to the local copy that our software can also create.

There is no use in having high levels of access protection on your PC, only for all of this protection to be removed as soon as you create a local copy of your data to a removable hard drive for instance.

GBData software encrypts all of its data, so that its local copies are just as unreadable to unauthorised eyes, as the data transmitted to our servers.

Carl.

Data protection – penalties for breaches

From 6 April 2010, businesses can face fines of up to £500,000* if they breach data protection laws.

There are no new rules laid down by this regulation, but penalties will be stiffened for contravention of existing rules,

so now is the time to review your company practices in relation to personal data protection legislation.

Further information can be found here:

GBData online backup software encrypts all data before it leaves your PC, so ensuring that you always conform to the data

protection act.  This also includes if you run a local copy backup using our software.

GBData increases its bandwidth – again!

GBData are proud to announce that for a second time in 12 months they have increased the available bandwidth.

The amount of bandwidth directly effects the speed of backups and especially restores.  As the number of clients increases this bandwidth should be increased to void congestion at peak periods, and for clients to be able to restore at a resonable speed.

One of the best ways to see how professional a backup service provider is, is to ask how fast the “pipe” is, both in and out of their facility.

GBData are committed to continuously improving their service, and this includes upgrading their bandwidth before congestion becomes an issue.

Existing clients will notice an improvement, particularly in the speed of restores, which should now be several orders of speed faster

Carl.

ISO9001

GBData are proud to announce that they have achieved the prestigious ISO9001 quality award.

ISO 9000 is a family of standards for quality management systems. ISO 9000 is maintained by ISO, the International Organization for Standardization and is administered by accreditation and certification bodies. The rules are updated, as the requirements motivate changes over time. Some of the requirements in ISO 9001:2008 (which is one of the standards in the ISO 9000 family) include

  • a set of procedures that cover all key processes in the business;
  • monitoring processes to ensure they are effective;
  • keeping adequate records;
  • checking output for defects, with appropriate and corrective action where necessary;
  • regularly reviewing individual processes and the quality system itself for effectiveness; and
  • facilitating continual improvement

A company or organization that has been independently audited and certified to be in conformance with ISO 9001 may publicly state that it is “ISO 9001 certified” or “ISO 9001 registered”. Certification to an ISO 9001 standard does not guarantee any quality of end products and services; rather, it certifies that formalized business processes are being applied.

Although the standards originated in manufacturing, they are now employed across several types of organizations. A “product”, in ISO vocabulary, can mean a physical object, services, or software.

Increased Insurance

GBData are now proud to announce that they have increased their level of insurance to an incredible £1million.

This provides you with the reassurance that should the worst happen, your company will be supported through financial redress.

We have never actually had to resort to this in order to provide our clients with recompence, but it provides that final level of comfort should the worst happen, and we lose your data completely.

Video’s now on the GBData website

Whilst designing our new website, we allowed the inclusion of videos.

We have now started to add these, and the first two can now be found in the video section.

One of them is the introduction video, that can also be found on the front page of our new website, and explains in simple terms, how our online backup service works.

We will be adding further videos over the comming weeks and months, however if there is a particular subject that you would like to see explained, do drop a line to let us know.

Carl.

Autism Awareness Month

Hi Guys

Just a quick note today to make you all aware of Autism Awareness Month.

Further information on autism can be found here

Autism is a lifelong developmental disability that affects the way a person communicates and relates to people around them. People with autism have difficulties with everyday social interaction.

Click on the links, understand.

http://www.autism-awareness.org.uk/

Thanks

Carl.

Channel 5′s the Gadget show recommends backups

On a recent Gadget Show shown on Channel 5, Jon promoted backing up of your computer.

He showed various different online backup services, “competitors” of GBData if you will, and complained that even they lose data (see here for more information on the famous Carbonite data loss), which he showed.  Why am I therefore bringing this to your attention you may ask?

Well he finished by saying that IT specialists say that computer data needs to be held in 3 different places, else it is not held at all.  Well this is not news to GBData.  Our service offers the option of also backing up your data to an inexpensive external hard drive, as well as transfering your encrypted files safely offsite to the GBData servers.  This therefore allows your data to be in 3 places at once; where it was originally stored, on a local external hard drive; encrypted of course, and off site on our servers.

When evaluating backup methods keep this in mind, because few others offer this as an option.

The cost of backups

There is an interesting article today, that discusses the cost of backing up your data.

The article can be found here:

It discusses the time when you have to perform a restore of your data, your heart is in your mouth, and suddenly the cost of backing up springs to mind; have you been a cheapskate, or does this premium service really work?

Backing up your data is the same as taking out insurance, no one wants to spend any money on it, until the times when you really need it, then you are really glad you spent that money.

Of course everything has a value, and you would not pay any price for a backup service, because ultimately your data has a value too, it is up to you to put a real value on the loss of that data, before deciding on how much you would be happy to pay for a backup service.

Carl.

Online backup data backup value shown by data loss in Santa Clara County

The importance of an online data storage backup solution has been emphasised by a significant loss of information in the US.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, a computer glitch in Santa Clara County resulted in the loss of backup copies of information.

It has been estimated that the cost of replacing this information will be around $600,000, to get the information needed about tenant and rental units for the Housing Authority in the area.

The news provider reports that “computer hardware and software failures” led to 1.6 million images being wiped out, meaning officials will have to go over the original documents again to reload the data.

Of course, with an online data storage backup solution, there would have been no risk of accidentally wiping out data as it would be kept secure with a hosting company.

Online data backup services were recently recommended to small and medium-sized businesses looking for disaster recovery abilities without having to invest in hardware.ADNFCR-1370-ID-19808115-ADNFCR

Continuous Data Protection has arrived!

GBData are proud to announce that they can now offer Continuous Data Protection.

Continuous data protection (CDP), also called continuous backup or real-time backup, refers to backup of computer data by automatically saving a copy of every change made to that data, essentially capturing every version of the data that the user saves. It allows the user or administrator to restore data to any point in time.

This feature means that you can now instantly backup those files that are most important to you, the moment that they are changed or saved, without having to wait for the normal scheduled backup.

This feature comes as standard with our software, we do not charge a premium for this.

Brand New software Arrives

Our Brand New software now has a clean easy to use interface.

We have listened to ours users, who said that whilst the software was very powerful, it was not the easiest to use.

The new version not only has lots of new features, including Continuous Data Protection, but also an entirely new user interface.

This interface is more intuitive, less busy and much simpler to use. Non of this comes at the expensive of its feature set, or the price of the service, that remains the same as last year.