The so-called digital universe, like the actual universe, is ever-expanding. Some estimates put our collection of data at about 17 zettabytes by 2025. That’s a lot of information! And much of that is important for small businesses to protect and manage.

Yet surveys estimate that as many as 98 percent of businesses do not back up their data. Nor do they protect it from security breaches. More than 75 percent of those breaches occur at businesses with fewer than 200 employees, and over 60 percent of those businesses shut their doors for good within six months of discovering a breach.

MANAGING DATA: A MUST-DO

Dealing with data is something the 28 million small businesses operating in the United States need to add to their to-do lists. But it’s a critical one.

No matter what type of small business you operate – from making dog training equipment in your basement to running a medical clinic – at some point soon, you will need more space for data storage. Think of all the information you produce and provide daily – documents, presentations, emails, databases, graphics, audio files, videos, spreadsheets. That doesn’t even account for the myriad software applications you have, and they can take up a lot of space.

In addition, there are

• Viruses and spyware threats that necessitate backups
• More and more video and other large media files that must be shared and stored
• Government regulations, such as Sarbanes-Oxley, require businesses to maintain and back up data
• Legal requirements prompt small businesses to archive email messages for five years

REMOVABLE DRIVES CAN HELP

Storing and managing data storage are two of those functions absolutely critical to business success. A simple, safe and inexpensive way to add more storage is a removable hard drive like our DataPort 27. Put one in the optical bay of every computers – or use our new docking station – so everyone has access to removable storage.

These removable hard drives don’t need an internet connection to access data, travel well, and can be used with laptops and computers of all kinds. They can’t be hacked like cloud storage can, and you always know where your data is physically stored. And transfer of that information is fast. Removable drives can give you peace of mind too, and what small business owner can’t use that?