Small Business Backup & Disaster Recovery Guide

What to back up, how to recover, and why continuity planning matters.

Backup Is Not the Goal — Recovery Is

Businesses do not need backups. They need the ability to get back to work. Every decision below should be judged by one question: how quickly can we operate again?

Two Numbers to Decide First

Recovery Point Objective: how much data you can afford to lose, measured in time
Recovery Time Objective: how long you can afford to be down
Write both down. They determine everything else, including cost.

What Actually Needs Backing Up

Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace data — the provider protects their platform, not your deleted or encrypted data
Servers, including applications and databases, not just files
Line-of-business and accounting applications
Configuration and documentation you would need to rebuild

Cloud Backup vs Local Backup

Local backups restore fastest. Cloud backups survive fire, theft, and ransomware that reaches your network. Most small businesses should have both, with at least one copy stored where an attacker on your network cannot reach it.

Ransomware Considerations

Backups must be immutable or otherwise protected from deletion
Backup accounts should be separate from daily admin accounts
Assume the attacker looks for backups first, because they do

Test Your Restores

An untested backup is a guess. Schedule real restore tests at least twice a year, document how long each one takes, and compare it to the recovery time you decided you could live with.

Business Continuity Planning

Technology is one part of continuity. Write down who makes the call during an outage, how staff will be contacted, what work can continue offline, and what you tell customers. A one-page plan that people have read beats a fifty-page plan nobody has opened.

A Note on Pricing

At SteroGroup, backup and disaster recovery is quoted separately from Managed IT because the right solution depends on how much data you have and how fast you need it back. We would rather price it honestly than bury it in a flat fee that does not fit.