
Thus, you should use a disaster recovery checklist which outlines the steps you need to take in order to successfully deal with the crisis. A responsible business owner understands that disaster recovery planning is a complex process that should be approached in a responsible manner. What is the best time to schedule backups? Scheduling backups when system use is as low as possible (such as overnight) will speed the backup process.By Jessie Reed Components of the Disaster Recovery Plan ChecklistĮvery time a disaster strikes, it can cause serious damage to your organization if appropriate actions are not immediately implemented.Do you have the resources to perform backups? You must have backup hardware of sufficient capacity and software to perform backups.For critical information such as business files, you may need to recover your information quickly. How quickly do you need to recover the information? Time is an important factor in creating a backup plan.For example, critical information that changes daily should be backed up daily. How often does the information change? The frequency of change can affect your decision on how often the information should be backed up.For less important information, you could back up the information with less frequency. How important is the information on your systems or devices? For critical information such as contact lists, email, financial transactions, or related business files, you may want to have redundant backup.While the process is simple to implement and adds no additional costs, the risk associated with this method is the potential loss of all your information and also all your backed up information should you have a serious hard drive failure.Ĭonsider the following when developing a backup plan: Hard Drive: Another common method of backing up information requires the use of an allocated area of the hard drive of your computer.Additionally, be aware that with cloud solutions, backups, and recovery speeds are dependent on the speed of your Internet connection. Things to consider include cost and location of storage as well as the security controls that the cloud provider has in place. Usually this is done via a paid cloud service. Cloud-Based Backup: Performing backups to the cloud is becoming more common.If the external device is disconnected, your backup will not be performed as scheduled. To implement this solution, an additional device must be purchased and connected to your computer. This way, if the hard drive on your computer fails, your backup files are still available to restore. External Drive: One of the more common methods of backing up information is storing the backup image on a portable drive.
