Today we had a really bad thing that happened, but it ended up not mattering at all.  One of my clients was busy doing some work and accidentally deleted a directory with about 1 GB of data in it. I got a very worried email from them and if it could be restored.  Fortunately, we had recently implemented a new backup system and it was running very well.  I logged into the system, found the needed directory in the last backup to Mozy and kicked off the restore.  40 minutes later, they were back to using the files that had gone MIA.

Why did this not matter?  Because we had good backups in place.  The system syncs nightly to Mozy’s storage systems and I get daily updates on how things went.  When I got the email telling me about the issue I knew right away where the data would be and how to get it back.  No running around for tapes.  No hoping that last job had actually worked.

In the past, backups could cost quite a bit.  Tape drives, backup software and tapes don’t come cheap when you are a small or medium sized business (SMB).  You could easily drop $5,000 or more on a single tape drive, some software and enough tapes to keep it going for a while.  Then you have to switch tapes daily and all that other fun stuff.  As a result a lot of SMBs don’t have the backups they need and we all need them.  Accidents happen.

The good news is that backups don’t have to cost you a ton of capital.  How much did this wonderful peace of mind cost my client?  For this server, the grand total is less than $10 per month.  How long did it take to setup?  About 15 minutes.  How long and expensive could it have been if the data was completely gone?