SMB and SOHO Data Storage Challenges - RDX Storage Technology solves these problems

Driven both by corporate business needs and government regulations, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) today face the challenge of safely storing and protecting their corporate data—whether those assets are in the form of data, images, video or audio. RDX Storage Technology meets and exceeds these requirements.

Did you know that:

• A hard drive crashes every 15 seconds
• 2,000 laptops are stolen or lost every day
• 32% of data loss is caused by human error
• 31% of PC users have lost all of their PC files to events beyond their control
• 25% of lost data is due to the failure of a portable drive
• 44% of data loss is caused by mechanical failures
• 15% or more of laptops are stolen or suffer hard drive failures
• One in 5 computers suffer a fatal hard drive crash during its lifetime
(University of North Carolina Technology Survey)

The quantity of the information SMBs generate and consume daily is estimated to be growing at an alarming rate of 60% annually. Just like their larger counterparts, SMBs must manage and safeguard this data and other physical records or face business disruption, devastating losses or potential failure of the business itself. SMBs storage needs are similar to those of large corporations, but the fact is that the storage solutions must be completely different. The key component of an effective data storage solution can enable SMBs to simultaneously establish practical and highly effective backup and archival practices.

A Convergence of Factors
The backup and storage capacity requirements have been fueled by a convergence of factors: companies today require 24×7 access to increasingly large amounts of data; compliance regulations now extend the retention periods for documents and data; and companies have gained a growing awareness of the need to back up their data as part of an overall business continuity or disaster recovery plan.

Instant access to data is now taken for granted, whether in the office, on the road or working remotely. This has become a business imperative as unmanaged or poorly managed data can bury decisions under even higher piles of conflicting data. This can also cause companies to waste time looking for information, reducing overall productivity and leading to missed opportunities to grow the business, from losing individual sales to losing customers.

At the same time, the expanding body of state and federal government legislation and compliance requirements now mandate how and when certain types of information may be used, stored, retained and destroyed. In addition, certain industries have regulations mandating how information must be stored and made available, and the Internet has produced a growing body of privacy laws.

Properly managed, data is a strategic corporate asset. Improperly managed, it can become a significant liability. In the case of a litigation request, for example, companies are responsible for producing the required information that is needed for its defense. Company executives have the responsibility of producing the right records at the right time.

Therefore, companies have a growing awareness of the necessity of disaster recovery programs that include the regular backup and archiving of data so that in the event of a natural disaster (fire, water damage, etc.) they can quickly access another copy of their corporate data and be back up and running again quickly.

However, while companies may recognize the value of their data and the negative impact of data loss on their businesses, many are still not adequately protecting their data. According to Small Business Computing magazine, 40% of SMBs don’t back up their data at all, and 60% of all data is stored on PC desktops and laptops. Looking at SOHO users, only 73% who have a personal backup device back up at least monthly, and only 40% back up daily. This failure to protect data adequately can have dire consequences. Disasters aren’t always extreme—an extended power outage can devastate a small business just as a major earthquake or flood. Personal disasters are even more likely, according to the following statistics from research at the University of North Carolina’s Information Technology Service:

40% of SMBs don’t backup their data at all, and 60% of all data is stored on PC desktops and laptops.

SMB Storage Gets Personal

Today’s Dynamic: Technology Evolves To Keep Pace with Storage Requirements
The good news is that the right storage devices, such as RDX Storage Technology, can help SMBs share data, collaborate in an automated way and protect their valuable assets. In addition to avoiding wasted time and improved collaboration, SMBs can move more quickly and arrive at key decisions more efficiently if they manage, backup and intelligently migrate data on an ongoing basis.

Unlike large enterprises; smaller companies usually have a systems administrator that will handle storage as an added task rather than a dedicated storage expert, necessitating that data protection be simple to understand, implement and administer.

SMBs require an easy to use, simple to integrate, fool-proof and cost-effective “all in one” storage solution. The key features that appeal to SMBs in any external storage device are capacity and throughput, with portability and an external button to start their backup as other key features. RDX Stoarge technology meets these.

Establishing Personal Storage Best Practices
There are numerous laws, regulations, standards and business practices that include data retention requirements. SMBs must comply with the record keeping requirements defined by regulators, their industry and by legal precedence. The retention requirements vary significantly from one type of data to another and the same data may be required to be kept for different time periods by different states.

SMB Storage Gets Personal - Today, RDX Storage Technology solves these problems for SMBs and SOHO.
Ultimately, by instituting a records management and storage process:
• Storage becomes highly reliable and error-free
• Archived assets are easy to preserve, locate, reuse and resell
• Archival storage becomes the standard, rather than a luxury
• Disaster recovery best practices can be instituted