Three focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship and Technology. In today’s digital world, most businesses and organizations have an information technology (IT) component. As such, large amounts of critical data must be properly stored. Not doing so can have several negative consequences. The following contributed post is entitled, Storage Options – Is There a Best Option?
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When it comes to looking after your business, there is a lot of information passing through. Some you will need to keep, others you won’t, and there will be plenty of projects and other files that you will need to hold on to until the end of your contract. When it comes to storage, you’ll need to spend some time thinking about what you need, and then you will know your best option.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
Storage Needs
Before you settle on the best storage for your needs, you will have to assess your business. Here are a few questions to get you started:
● How old is the data you want to store?
● Is it all related to your business?
● How much of it is doubled up?
● Where do you need to access the data from?
● Who needs access?
● How fast do you need access?
Once you understand your data, and what will make a difference to you, you will begin to see what kind of storage is your best option. In most cases, it will be a combination of solutions.
Options
Once you have answered those questions, you can move on to researching or refreshing knowledge on different options.
External hard drives
This is one of the most cost-effective ways to store a large amount of data that you need to have on hand most of the time. They simply plug into your computer and are ideal for travel. But you have to remember that you can lose an HDD, and it can get damaged by being dropped, wet, and can be susceptible to corruption.
Thumb Drives
If you are on the go a lot, then a small thumb drive is going to be ideal. They are small enough to put in your pocket, or more preferably, on a keychain somewhere safe. They don’t hold much, so you will need to be very selective. You can only share the thumb with people you are physical with.
Cloud
Online storage is what people should be looking at. Cloud computing is one of the best solutions for most businesses. It allows you to share huge files with clients all over the world. And, multiple people can work on a project at the same time, and the information will be available immediately. This also means that you won’t need to travel with your own computer, you can access what you need from any system with internet access. It is typically well encrypted, and you can’t lose it, drop it, or otherwise damage it.
NAS
Network-attached storage is super-fast, reliable, and gives you access to data in an IP networking environment. They are suitable for small businesses that need a large amount of cheap storage for multiple users – but only within their own network. They are easy to manage and an excellent option for centrally managed storage.
Before you implement any data storage, you should talk to an IT advisor or do a lot of research so you can get the best for your business. Don’t wait until you need mass storage to have things in place, plan ahead.
