Lessons From Natural Disasters

Natural disasters can quickly surpass the best laid plans for disaster preparedness.  Recently this week, the Northeastern United States was faced with flooding from Pennsylvania to Maryland.  As I watched and read some of the news reports, I thought about how small businesses might cope with such disasters.  How do small businesses protect their vital business data that might be stored on computers?  Beyond the basic tape or CD-ROM disc backups that most small business owners are familiar with, there are other alternatives that may be useful to consider. 

Remote backup or on-line backup services provide a good alternative to physical media backups.  The downside to physical backup media is that it may be lost in cases of fires or floods.  On line backup services provide a secondary backup alternative that can securely store data hundreds if not thousands of miles away for small business users. 

Here are some on line services to consider:

www.backup.com
www.usdatatrust.com
www.xdrive.com

Having lived in central Pennsylvania, it is heart wrenching to see some towns that I'm familiar with, flooded, and homes filled with mud and water. My thoughts and prayers are with the residents of all the disaster areas.