Choosing the Right Hard Drive Options for Data Backups
Someone recently asked me about backing up their clinic's data. She said, "I know I need to back up my stuff, Bobby! But where do I put it?" Great idea for a Skool post! TL;DR—At a bare minimum, buy an external hard drive large enough to hold all of your data. A much better option is to purchase a NAS with multiple disks and advanced configurations. Here's the thought...If you lost all of your company's data, what would that look like? All the customer or patient data? All of the receipts? Everything is gone. What do you do? It’s not just about storing files. It’s about making sure your data is safe, accessible, and recoverable when the bad day comes. Option 1: The “Down and Dirty” Drive For very small businesses, or even solo operators, a single external hard drive can get the job done. Plug it in, run your backup, and you’re covered. It’s cheap, simple, and requires very little setup. If you go this route, you're going to have to consider software that will start the backup process, too. Pros: Affordable, easy to set up, quick to start & better than nothing. Cons: Single point of failure & if that drive dies, so does your backup. This is like carrying a spare tire in your trunk. It’s better than nothing, but you wouldn’t drive cross-country without a "real" backup plan. Option 2: NAS or SAN (Network Storage) As businesses grow, so do the risks. That’s when you step up to a NAS (Network Attached Storage) or SAN (Storage Area Network). These systems offer: - Multiple hard drives working together for redundancy (if one fails, your data lives on). - More advanced features like snapshots, remote access, and easier scaling. - Disk tolerance options (RAID setups) so you don’t lose sleep over a single drive crash.