Backup software is an important tool for your small business. Why? Because research tells us well over half of the small businesses that lose their data close down after six months.
Importance of Backup Software for Small Businesses
Backup software offers numerous benefits for small businesses, ensuring the continuity and security of their operations. In today’s digital age, where data is a critical asset, the importance of backup solutions cannot be overstated.
- Data Protection: Backup software provides a safeguard against data loss due to hardware failures, cyber-attacks, or accidental deletions, ensuring that all critical business information is securely stored and retrievable.
- Disaster Recovery: In the event of disasters like fires, floods, or cyberattacks, having backup software enables quick recovery of data, minimizing downtime and business disruption.
- Improved Productivity: With data safely backed up, employees can work confidently without the fear of losing their progress, leading to increased efficiency and productivity.
- Cost-Effectiveness: Backup software can be more cost-effective compared to the potential losses from data breaches or system failures. It eliminates the need for significant investments in physical storage infrastructures.
- Regulatory Compliance: Many industries have regulations requiring data protection and retention. Backup software helps in complying with these legal requirements, avoiding penalties and legal issues.
- Easy Access and Management: Modern backup solutions offer easy access and management of data, allowing businesses to quickly retrieve specific files or datasets as needed.
- Scalability: Backup software can grow with the business, offering scalable solutions that can accommodate increasing amounts of data as the business expands.
Choosing the Best Backup Software for Small Business Users: Our Methodology
For small businesses, data backup is crucial for protecting against data loss due to hardware failures, cyber-attacks, or other unforeseen events. At Small Business Trends, we’ve developed a set of criteria to help small businesses choose the best backup software that suits their specific needs. Each factor is rated on an importance scale where 10 represents the highest level of importance. This structured approach ensures that the most essential aspects are considered in making an informed decision. Here’s the methodology we used when crafting our list:
- Reliability and Backup Success Rate
- Our Importance Scale: 10/10
- The software must consistently perform successful backups without errors, ensuring data integrity.
- Ease of Use and User Interface
- Our Importance Scale: 9/10
- The software should be user-friendly, with an intuitive interface that makes setting up and managing backups straightforward.
- Security Features
- Our Importance Scale: 9/10
- Strong encryption and secure data protection measures are essential to safeguard sensitive business information.
- Backup Options and Flexibility
- Our Importance Scale: 8/10
- The availability of various backup options like full, incremental, and differential backups, as well as the flexibility to schedule backups.
- Storage Capacity and Scalability
- Our Importance Scale: 8/10
- Adequate storage capacity for current needs and the ability to scale as the business grows.
- Data Recovery and Restoration Ease
- Our Importance Scale: 7/10
- The ability to quickly and easily restore data from backups is critical for minimizing downtime in case of data loss.
- Cost and Subscription Model
- Our Importance Scale: 6/10
- Pricing should be competitive and offer good value, with a clear and scalable subscription model.
- Support for Multiple Platforms and Systems
- Our Importance Scale: 6/10
- Compatibility with various operating systems and platforms used within the business.
- Customer Support and Resources
- Our Importance Scale: 5/10
- Access to responsive customer support and comprehensive resources like tutorials and FAQs.
- Integration with Other Business Tools
- Our Importance Scale: 4/10
- The ability to integrate with other business software and systems for streamlined workflows.
By carefully assessing these criteria and our list of the top options below, small businesses can select a backup software solution that not only provides robust data protection but also aligns with their operational needs and budget constraints.
Best Backup Software List
Here’s a list of some of the best choices for your company.
IDrive
This product provides a reliable solution that allows you to manage dashboards on remote computers. That’s a big bonus if your small business is planning to expand or already has subsidiary locations. All you need is one IDrive account to backup all of your business data. This industry leader even backs up your servers and databases in real time.
The basic account is free but you only get 5G of storage. IDrive Business is $74.52 a year for the first year with unlimited users and 250G. There’s a personal option as well.
Acronis
This software offers an easy and scalable solution. It also includes business continuity features where some of the others don’t. Different administrators can be assigned different roles and your backups can be stored in several different locations.
A one year subscription starts at $69 with a perpetual license for $89 dollars.
Box
Box Business features unlimited storage and an integration with MS Office 365. This one includes international regulatory standards like ISO 27001, ISO 27018 and HIPAA for those small businesses with international clients.
For anywhere from 3 users up to 10, Box Business is reasonable at about $9 per month to start.
Backblaze
This product offers external drive backups and the ability to restore files via external drive. Just be aware, Backblaze doesn’t offer any options for server backups like some of the more expensive products.
This subscription-based online backup costs $50 yearly for unlimited storage.
CrashPlan
Here’s another straightforward addition to the list to entice a small business owner with free upgrades if he or she is looking to keep costs down. CrashPlan PRO has an account allowing administrators to easily manage multiple user accounts, change permissions for employees and see real-time report numbers on account activity and storage use.
One of the drawbacks is the lack of server backups, but CrashPlan PRO is compatible with Windows, Linux and Mac. Subscriptions are reasonable at $9.99 a computer per month, but you need to buy three licenses.
ADrive
This company has just added a new mobile app so you can get files from any Android or Apple iOS device. This is great for sales teams and travelling small business owners. Your ADrive account even allows you to edit and save documents with Zoho technology thanks to powerful integrations.
Large files are no problem with a 16GB transfer ability.
ADrive offers a free trial with a business account and a monthly price starting at $7 dollars.
Arcserve
Arcserve’s Cloud promises reliable and powerful features like managing restores, tracking cloud usage and scheduling backups from one console. This software offers Office 365 backup. It also has a tool to reduce data duplication so you don’t wind up being buried with repetition.
Small businesses are offered a free 30 day trial.
| Feature | IDrive | Acronis | Box | Backblaze | CrashPlan | ADrive | Arcserve |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dashboard Management | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Server Backup | Yes | Not specified | Not specified | No | No | Not specified | Not specified |
| Real-Time Backup | Yes | Not specified | Not specified | Not specified | Not specified | Not specified | Not specified |
| Storage Capacity | 5GB free, 250GB paid | Varies | Unlimited | Unlimited | Varies | 16GB transfer ability | Not specified |
| Regulatory Compliance | No | No | Yes (ISO 27001, ISO 27018, HIPAA) | No | No | No | Not specified |
| Subscription Cost | $74.52/year for Business | $69/year or $89 perpetual | $9/user/month | $50/year | $9.99/computer/month | $7/month | Free 30-day trial |
| Special Features | Remote computer management | Different admin roles, multiple backup locations | Integration with MS Office 365 | External drive backups and file restoration | Free upgrades, real-time reports | Mobile app, Zoho document editing | Office 365 backup, data deduplication tool |
Photo via Shutterstock
Thanks for the list. It doesn’t have Dropbox though.