In my article last month, I wrote about some of the options facing small business owners when considering backup and data protection. As I prepared my original piece, I was very aware that stark warnings of the Things That Can Go Wrong might not be altogether welcomed by readers of this newsletter. After all, there seems to be quite enough pessimism and gloom doing the rounds already without adding more to the mix. That's why being a practitioner of backup and data protection is sometimes like being in insurance: deep down, everyone needs your services but ideally, they'd rather not.

The important word in that last sentence is ‘ideally'. Insurance companies know that the way to promote their products is not to beat their customers over the head with thoughts of unforeseen disaster. That's why adverts for insurance on TV mostly seem to feature beautiful people with perfect teeth having minor mishaps, or cuddly talking animals taking comedians of yesteryear out for dinner. But as anyone who has suffered stormy weather in the real world can testify, the impact of an unforeseen disaster can be far-reaching and, without adequate insurance cover, hard to recover from.

a third of all small businesses in the UK have no protection against unexpected data loss or IT disruption.
It's the same with data protection. In an ideal world, there would be no malicious viruses, no careless people accidentally wiping their hard drive, no computers failing without warning, no laptops accidentally being dropped or vandalised, no fire or flood and certainly no theft. In reality, however, we all know that these things can happen, which is why it's a concern that a third of all small businesses in the UK have no protection against unexpected data loss or IT disruption.

The reasons for this aren't completely clear. Although budgets are tight, the reality is that your company's data is worth exponentially more than any system you could choose to back it up. According to research firm, Taneja Group, the cost of downtime for a small business is estimated at anything from £15,000 to 25,000 per hour. For most, that's the difference between survival and becoming another statistic of the recession.

If you feel the issue of storage is too complex then an authorised IT reseller can provide good starting advice on different types of backup. Although the High Street is a good place to shop for PCs or printers, when it comes to specific advice about backup options you may find it helpful to speak to a supplier with additional expertise and training.

Some small firms think data protection is only something big enterprises need to worry about. But a company with 10 employees is just as dependent on its business information as a multi-national - and subject to many of the same regulations on data retention, data security and data disposal. Do you know what these are?

Ultimately, the choice is yours. But the good news is that there are lots of choices when it comes to data protection: from simple devices that attach directly to your sever or PC, right through to more sophisticated solutions such as Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Storage Area Networks (SAN) that are designed to free up IT resources and make storage more efficient. I don't have space in this article to go through the pro's and con's of each type of data protection solution and how they could serve your needs, but whatever you decide to do, please do something. Yesterday was sunny but today it's raining. That's the real world for you.

For more informaion visit www.hp.com.uk/rdx