Most startups have their staff working using computers, making their data to be digital in nature. This means that as time goes along, most business data is kept on servers or hard drives rather than paper documents stored in filing cabinets.
Whilst this makes the data more accessible, it also exposes businesses to a higher risk of losing their data in the case of software or even hardware failure. This is why digital business data can be stored using various methods which can reduce the risk of exposing companies to events of data loss.
Methods of data storage
The most basic method to store data is simply to store it on the staff’s computer hard drives. This has the advantage of reducing the risk of exposing the data to the wrong people. However, having the data on stored on the one drive means that there are no spare copies of that data available in the advents of hard drive and operating system failure.
This is why cloud data storage is increasingly becoming more popular. Not only does it make the data easier to access by different people, it also means that there will always be an online copy of the data in the advents of staff computer failures. The downfall to cloud storage is that anyone can see the data if they have the right passwords, exposing he company to incidents of data theft or even sabotage.
This is why more companies are switching to using RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) as a way to store their data. RAID uses servers which contain multiple hard drives. The business data is stored and duplicated across those different drives, all centralized around servers which can be accessed by the company’s staff.
Related: 4 Smart Ways the Cloud Can Help Your Small Business
RAID is better
By spreading the data and duplicating it across different hard drives, RAID servers ensure that if a hard drive breaks down, the other drives still contain the information so no data gets lost. This is the best data security a company could ever wish for.
Not only that but using their own servers means businesses can keep their information in-house rather than stored on another company’s servers, as it would be the case when using cloud storage. To sum it, RAID data storage uses the best of both worlds, keeping data safe and accessible to the right people.
RAID recovery
RAID is the safest method of data storage but it is also quite a complex system to put together and to maintain. And whilst the data is safe even if the one drive crashes, the software which coordinates the system can suffer from faults and errors, potentially making the data no longer accessible.
The last thing to do in this situation is to attempt data recovery ourselves as this can lead to the data being unrecoverable altogether. This is why when it comes down to fixing RAID problems, it is best to hire RAID recovery professionals.
Using a company with a consistent recovery record is the best bet getting our RAID servers up and running again. Your business data loss should always be handled by professionals as they are the only ones qualified to get the job done. Risking losing all our business data simply is not an option.