In our modern digital age, it is a fact that businesses have to establish safe and secure ways to store their electronic data in order to avoid any harmful incidents of data loss. This is because loosing that data can have a very negative impact and could potentially lead to the closure of the business. After all, business data is the life and blood of a business, containing all the information pertinent to its day-to-day running such as staff and client information. This is why a lot of businesses use a method of data storage called RAID.
What is RAID?
RAID is a short for ‘Redundant Array of Independent Drives’ and is one of the most used methods for business data storage. Basically, RAID is an array of different hard drives used to store our important business data. Rather than the data only being stored on one hard drive, it is instead duplicated and spread across a number of different hard drives.
This offers the clear advantage of creating duplicates of the data which can be accessed in the advent of one of the hard drives failing. As such, RAID offers safe data backup for businesses. Furthermore, having the data present on different hard drives also offers performance advantages. This is because rather than all the company staff trying to access data at the same time from the one hard drive (which will cause that drive’s performance to slow down), the data is being accessed from multiple drives, reducing the work load being imposed on each drive.
Setting up & looking after RAID.
Unlike single hard drive storage or cloud storage, RAID is a complex setup which requires qualified technicians. It is a mix of hardware and software which if attended by unqualified staff could result in the loss of our business data. Qualified technicians a vital part of looking after a RAID array. Furthermore, if our RAID setup starts having problems such as the loss of one of its drives, then RAID recovery specialists are the best people to call onto. In short, it is vital for our business data that we use the right people for the right job.
RAID is worth the cost.
RAID will cost a business more than other methods of data storage. The fact of duplicating the data means it will cost more in hard drives, and looking after the array means paying the right qualified technicians to run and repair it. Those costs will definitely accumulate, but let’s look at it this way: if paying for proper and safer data storage means that no incidents of data loss occur, then our investment is definitely justified. Data loss is known to have disastrous consequences on a business’s lifespan and no cost is too great if it prevents our business from being closed down. RAID business data storage is worth the cost it should be considered as an essential for any business who take their data storage seriously.
