The end of the year provides an excellent occasion to review your backup strategy. Consider how your life would be affected next year if all the files you worked on this past year suddenly vanished. As anyone who has suffered such an event knows, a dead hard drive, stolen laptop, or stepped-on flash drive can turn your world upside-down. Because once that data is gone, it’s gone for good. A New Year’s resolution of “Never lose a file again” suddenly makes a whole lot of sense.
Granted, there are plenty of backup options available, online along with tape and hard drives, CDs, and so forth. Some are cheap, others expensive, but for maximum security, most methods require that you discipline yourself to remember to copy the files or change out the tape or disk and physically take them someplace else every time you time you work on them. This is both inconvenient and because it’s so easy to forget, risky as well.
Uploads online to distant data storage centers may solve some problems, but remote, big box service providers don’t have options a local service does such as using removable drives, technician setups, and in-office help. A combination of both is needed.
In trying to make surviving such disasters as data loss easier, Southwest Cyberport has developed SWCP BUS, an online backup system which is combined with our famous neighborly, local service. We are confident that this gives the SWCP BUS substantial all-around advantages over any other backup plan for insuring your peace of mind. Here are some reasons why:
- Physical security: SWCP BUS digitally stores your files in two separate secured underground facilities, neither of which is near our main office. Therefore, even your backup is backed up so that it would take such a widespread general disaster to destroy all copies that your loss of data would be a small part of your problem.
- Instant Availability: Data can be downloaded to any Web browser over broadband, so you can retrieve it from just about anywhere.
- Easily Transferable: Being in the cloud means that all your files can be easily transferred to any new device you purchase, even if it uses a different operating system, like switching from Windows to a Mac. This also means the SWCP BUS can function as a data locker, keeping files from the office accessible at home, for instance, or even for non-simultaneous collaboration.
- Automatic: Just set it up and forget about it. SWCP BUS will upload only those directories that you specify and will do so regularly on whatever schedule you prefer.
- Feedback: You are automatically assured by email each time SWCP BUS uploads your data, and also informed if any problems occur.
- Encrypted: SWCP BUS supports encryption so that your confidential documents remain private.
- Data Compression: Saves space and time uploading and downloading.
- Incremental: Only new files and changed sections of files are copied by SWCP BUS . This makes backing up faster, and saves space too.
- Generational: Older copies are saved for a period determined by the user. This means if you accidentally deleted some information from a file you can still get it back, even if the file had been backed up since the change. This feature alone can be quite a life-saver!
- Multi-user setup: The Server Plan allows backup of all your office workstations.
- Technician installation: An onsite visit by one of our technicians to set up an office backup system and get it functioning for you is available for a fee.
- Seed loading: Transferring your data for a small fee first to a removable drive to be uploaded to SWCP BUS here at our office greatly speeds up the initial backup process for very large data sets. This means that unlike other online services in which all the data must be uploaded, SWCP BUS doesn’t hog your access. You can also bring your machine into our office to do so without an extra charge.
- Seed restoration: Transferring data back to your system by a removable drive makes restoring very large file sets easy. Note that it is because we are local that these options are available.
- Insurance: You can also protect all your valuable possessions with SWCP BUS like your computer system by creating pictures and lists of all the insured items that you own. You can easily keep them current simply by taking photos of new purchases and storing them with the list in a directory on your computer that gets backed up. This could be invaluable in case of loss by fire, flood, storms, or theft.
- Broadband Discount: A small monthly discount is offered to all SWCP Highspeed Access customers. If you get CenturyLink DSL through us, use LightSpeed, SWCP DIRECT, we provide a T-1 or other circuit, or you collocate your server here, you can save $3/month on the Desktop Plan or $5/month for the Server plan – plus get cheaper extra storage space if you need it. See the price sheet here.
Get on the SWCP BUS today, and sleep better throughout 2012, knowing that amid all the uncertainties in this world, at least your precious data will be safe.
