Data loss has more causes than most business owners expect. Hardware failure is the most common – hard drives fail without warning and servers have a finite lifespan. Human error, including accidental deletion and overwrites, accounts for a significant share of incidents. Ransomware and cyberattacks can encrypt or destroy data entirely. Physical disasters (fire, flood, power surges) can take out on-site equipment instantly. And software corruption or failed updates can render data inaccessible without any obvious warning. A properly structured backup and recovery solution protects against all of these scenarios, not just the obvious ones.

Data backup is the process of creating and storing copies of your data so it can be restored if lost. Disaster recovery is the broader plan and process for restoring business operations after a significant failure – it includes backups but also covers how quickly systems can be brought back online, how staff will continue working during an outage, and what the sequence of recovery steps looks like. Backup answers the question of whether your data exists somewhere. Disaster recovery answers the question of how fast your business can get back to work.

Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is the maximum amount of time your business can tolerate being down before the impact becomes unacceptable. Recovery Point Objective (RPO) is the maximum amount of data loss your business can accept, measured in time. For example, an RPO of 24 hours means you can afford to lose up to one day of data. Both metrics vary by industry and business type. Healthcare and accounting firms typically require tighter RPOs than general service businesses due to regulatory and client obligations. We use your industry requirements and operational needs to design a backup schedule and recovery architecture that meets your specific RTO and RPO targets.

We tailor backup frequency to your industry requirements and operational needs. For most SMBs, nightly backups are the standard cadence and align with typical RPO expectations. Businesses in regulated industries such as healthcare and finance may require more frequent backup windows to meet compliance standards — HIPAA, for example, requires covered entities to be able to recover data within a timeframe that protects patient care continuity. We assess your environment and compliance obligations and configure backup frequency accordingly.

Everything that matters to your business. Our backup solution covers servers, workstations, Microsoft 365 data including email and SharePoint, and Google Workspace data. Many businesses assume their Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace data is automatically protected by those platforms – it is not. Microsoft and Google protect their infrastructure, not your data. If files are accidentally deleted, corrupted, or lost due to a ransomware attack, the responsibility for recovery falls on you unless a separate backup is in place. We back up all of the above as part of a comprehensive data protection solution.

Retention schedules are designed around your industry’s compliance requirements and practical recovery needs. Our standard retention structure preserves the most recent daily backup, seven daily recovery points, four weekly recovery points, six monthly recovery points, and seven versioned copies. This structure supports the retention requirements of regulated industries including healthcare and accounting and ensures you can recover from incidents discovered days, weeks, or months after they occurred – not just the most recent failure.

Server backups are verified through test booting a virtual machine from the backup image – a process that confirms the backup is not just present but actually bootable and recoverable. Workstation backups and Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace backups are not subject to automated test boots but are monitored for successful completion. We recommend clients in mission-critical environments discuss recovery testing schedules as part of their initial setup conversation.

Yes. Our backup architecture is specifically designed to survive ransomware. A copy of your backups is stored offsite and separated from your primary network, which prevents ransomware from reaching and encrypting the backup data along with your live files. Backups can also be configured as immutable — meaning they cannot be altered or deleted once written, even by an attacker with elevated access to your systems. If ransomware encrypts your environment, we can restore from a clean backup point without paying the ransom.

Recovery speed depends on the nature and scale of the failure. In a server failure scenario, we can virtualize your server directly from the backup image in a matter of minutes – bringing your environment back online while physical hardware is sourced and replaced. Hardware replacement typically takes one to two weeks depending on availability. For smaller data recovery needs such as individual files or folders, restoration is generally fast. We design your recovery architecture around your RTO requirements so that the most critical systems come back first.

No. This is one of the most common and consequential misconceptions among SMB owners. Microsoft 365 is designed for high availability of the platform itself, meaning the service stays online, but it does not provide comprehensive backup protection for your data. Deleted emails, files, and SharePoint content are only retained for limited periods under Microsoft’s default settings, and those windows are often shorter than businesses realize. If data is lost due to accidental deletion, ransomware, or a departing employee wiping their account, Microsoft’s native tools may not be enough to recover it. We back up Microsoft 365 data as part of our standard backup solution.

Backup data is encrypted both in transit and at rest. Immutable backup options are available for clients in regulated industries or those with elevated ransomware risk. Your data is not accessible to unauthorized parties and remains under your ownership at all times.

Off-site backup storage is priced per terabyte per month, scaled to the volume of data you need to protect. The local backup component is priced based on the hardware required to support your environment – you pay for the appropriately sized device rather than an ongoing subscription for local storage. Backup and recovery is a separate service from managed IT and can be added alongside any managed IT plan or purchased independently. We provide a clear cost estimate as part of your data protection assessment.

Backup and recovery is a separate service that can be added to any managed IT plan. It is not bundled into the base managed IT pricing. We recommend it for all managed IT clients – the combination of proactive monitoring and a tested recovery solution is the most complete protection available for SMB environments – but it is priced and contracted independently so you have full visibility into what you are paying for.

Healthcare organizations subject to HIPAA are required to implement backup procedures and disaster recovery plans as part of their Security Rule obligations, with data availability requirements tied to patient care continuity. Accounting firms handling client financial data are subject to data protection expectations under regulations such as GLBA. Defense contractors under CMMC must implement media protection and recovery controls aligned with NIST SP 800-171. Nonprofits accepting online donations may have PCI DSS obligations around cardholder data. We design backup and retention schedules to meet the specific requirements of your industry rather than applying a generic configuration.

Request your free data protection assessment using the form on this page. We will evaluate your current environment, identify what data needs to be protected, assess your recovery requirements, and provide a clear recommendation and cost estimate. There is no obligation, and the assessment takes the guesswork out of knowing whether your business is actually protected.