Disaster Recovery 101: Decide what data you'll back up

Here at Carbonite we’re passionate about making enterprise-quality disaster recovery available to every business no matter their size or budget. To help ensure that everyone’s critical business information is protected, secured and easily recoverable we’ve created a Disaster Recovery 101 guide.

As an added bonus, we’re doing offering up tips and best practices on each of the six steps in building out your strategy right here on the Carbonite Blog. This week we’re discussing step 3: Deciding what to back up

Once you’ve selected which devices you’ll be backing up it’s time to select what types of data will be backed up. This can vary a lot depending on your industry, organization and IT environment but here are some general best practices to get you started:

1. Variety is the spice of life
The more types of data you’re backing up the easier recovery is going to be. Having file-level, image and database backup together gives you more recovery options so you can recover exactly what you need exactly when you need it.

2. System State is great but bare metal is better
While System State backup is a great backup strategy we really recommend using bare metal image backup instead. It allows you to skip re-installing an operating system and lets you get back to work quicker.

3. If you do file-level backup ask about remote recovery
File level backup is mainly used to recover files that are accidentally deleted or misplaced. However it can have an added bonus of allowing you grab your files on the go. Making sure your provider has a mobile app or you can download your files via the web will let you grab those files quickly and easily.