When making a backup strategy, you must always consider off-site storage. If your backups are on-site and a fire or flood occurs, you may not be able to recover your data.
If you’re using external USB drives for backups, you should rotate at least two drives taking one off-site. How often you rotate the drives (daily, weekly, or monthly) depends on how often your data changes and how willing you are to recreate data in case you need to recover from a disaster. If, for example, you rotate the drives weekly, there is a potential to lose 7 days worth of data if you have a disaster the same day you rotate the drives.
Some people are good at rotating drives when planned while others forget. If you are the latter, you might want to consider the ioSafe.
The ioSafe is Fireproof up to 1550 degrees F for 1/2 hour per ASTM E119. It is also Waterproof in up to 10ft of water for 72 hours. The Company offers an add-on forensic Data Recovery Service in the event that you have a disaster and the data can’t be read by normal methods.
If you have an ioSafe, you do not necessarily need to rotate drives off-site. You still need to check your backups often to make sure they are running and that the ioSafe is functioning properly.
The one thing an ioSafe is not good at protecting you from is theft or physical destruction. Although you can bolt it to the floor or use a cable lock, a determined thief can still steal or destroy it. To minimize this possibility, you should hide the ioSafe in a ceiling, wall, closet etc. Remember, the maximum USB cable length is 5 meters without using a booster.
