Why most small businesses don't back up (and why that's a bet you don't want to lose)
I've been doing IT support in and around Nottingham for over a decade, and I can count on one hand the number of small businesses I've walked into that had working backups. Not "I think there's a backup somewhere" — I mean a backup they could actually restore from right now if their computer caught fire.
There's a simple reason. Backups are boring. They don't make you money today. Nobody wakes up thinking "I'll spend Saturday morning setting up a backup system." They wake up thinking about invoices, customers, the broken printer, the Wi-Fi that drops out in the back office. Backups slide to the bottom of the list until the day a hard drive dies or ransomware encrypts everything — and then it's the only thing that matters.
The numbers aren't comforting. A hard drive manufacturer's own study found that roughly 1 in 5 hard drives fail within four years. For a small business with one or two computers, that's not a hypothetical — it's a "when", not an "if." And drives aren't the only threat. Ransomware, theft, a spilled coffee, an Office 365 account getting compromised, a website getting hacked. Any of these can wipe out years of work in seconds.
The good news: setting up decent backups is much simpler than most people think. It doesn't need to cost hundreds a month, and you don't need to be technical. Below I'll walk through exactly what to protect, how to do it, and what I charge if you'd rather someone else handled it.
What you actually need to back up
Most people overthink this. Here's the list that covers 95% of small businesses I work with:
- Documents and files. Your Documents folder, Desktop, any shared folders on the office PC. Word files, Excel spreadsheets, PDFs, scans, quotes, invoices. This is the obvious one.
- Email. If you use Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, your email lives in the cloud — but that doesn't mean it's backed up. Microsoft and Google don't guarantee you can recover deleted emails after 30 days. A separate email backup gives you a safety net.
- Accounting software data. QuickBooks, Xero, Sage, FreeAgent. Most are cloud-based now, but check: if you use a desktop version, the company file lives on your computer and needs backing up like any other file.
- Customer and client records. CRM systems, spreadsheets, appointment books — anything with names, numbers, and history you'd struggle to recreate.
- Your website. If you have one, make sure you have a recent backup of the files and database. A hacked website with no backup means building it from scratch.
- Passwords and licences. A password manager (I recommend Bitwarden — it's free) stores everything encrypted. If you're still using a spreadsheet or sticky notes, that file itself needs backing up.
One thing people often forget: photos. Before-and-after shots, product photos, office images for your website or Google Business Profile. These are a nightmare to recreate.
The 3-2-1 rule (and why it's still the best advice)
You'll hear this rule everywhere, and for good reason. It's simple and it works:
- 3 copies of your data
- On 2 different types of media
- With 1 copy stored offsite
In plain English: you have your working files on your computer (copy 1). You back them up to an external hard drive or a NAS box (copy 2, different media). And you keep a third copy somewhere else entirely — cloud storage, a drive at home, a friend's house — so that if the office burns down or gets burgled, you still have your data.
I've seen too many businesses with "a backup" that was an external drive sitting on the same desk as the computer. One fire or a break-in and both copies are gone. The offsite copy is the one that actually saves you.
Backup methods — which one's right for you
External hard drive (the simplest option)
Buy a 2 TB USB drive (about £55), plug it in, drag your files across. Done. The downside: you have to remember to do it. Set a recurring calendar reminder every Friday afternoon. Takes five minutes.
This is the bare minimum. It protects against hard drive failure but not fire, theft, or ransomware that encrypts connected drives. Still — if this is all you do, you're already ahead of most.
Cloud backup (set and forget)
Services like Backblaze (about £6/month per computer) or iDrive (£6/month for 5 TB) run quietly in the background and back up everything automatically. You install it once, it runs silently, and you get an email every month confirming your backup is healthy.
This is the option I recommend for most small businesses. It covers the offsite requirement (copy 3), it's automatic (so you can't forget), and it's cheap. The catch is the first backup takes a while — days, sometimes a week — because it's uploading everything over your broadband. After that, it only uploads what changed.
NAS (Network Attached Storage) — the small-office solution
A NAS is a small box that sits on your network with two or more hard drives inside, configured so that if one drive fails, you don't lose anything (RAID). All your office computers back up to it automatically. I set these up for businesses with 2–5 people who want everything centralised.
A basic 2-bay Synology NAS with two 4 TB drives costs about £300–400 all-in. You'll want to pair it with a cloud backup of the NAS itself (Backblaze B2, about £5/month per TB) for the offsite copy. This is the "proper" setup — the one that lets you sleep at night.
Cloud-to-cloud backup (for Microsoft 365 users)
If your business runs on Microsoft 365, remember: Microsoft protects their infrastructure, not your data. Accidental deletion, a fired employee wiping their mailbox, ransomware that syncs to OneDrive — none of that is covered by Microsoft's standard retention. A dedicated M365 backup service like Datto SaaS Protection or Veeam for Microsoft 365 backs up your emails, OneDrive files, and SharePoint separately. Costs roughly £3–5 per user per month.
How often should you back up?
Ask yourself: "If everything stopped working right now, how much work am I willing to redo?" If the answer is "a day's worth," back up daily. If it's "a week's worth," back up weekly.
For most small businesses I recommend daily automatic backups for the important stuff (documents, email, accounts) and weekly for less critical files. Cloud services do this automatically once set up. If you're using an external drive, aim for weekly at minimum — and keep last week's drive somewhere else before plugging in this week's.
The step everyone skips: testing your backups
A backup you haven't tested isn't a backup — it's a hope. I've had clients with backup drives that had been plugged in dutifully every Friday for a year, and when we tried to restore from them, the drive was unreadable. The backup software had been writing corrupted files the whole time.
Once a quarter, pick a random file — an invoice, a spreadsheet, a photo — and try to restore it. Actually open it. Make sure it's not blank, not corrupted, not from six months ago. If you use a cloud backup service, download a test file. If you use a NAS, log into it and pull a file back.
It takes ten minutes. It's the most important ten minutes of your backup routine.
What about backing up your website?
If your website runs on WordPress, install a backup plugin (UpdraftPlus is free and reliable) and set it to back up weekly to Google Drive or Dropbox. If your site is a custom build or static, make sure your developer gives you the files or you have access to the hosting panel where you can download a copy.
I've cleaned up hacked WordPress sites where the only copy of the website was the live one — and it was full of malware. A clean backup from two weeks earlier meant the site was back up in a few hours instead of days.
Should you do this yourself or hire someone?
If you're comfortable plugging in a drive and copying files, start with the external drive option today. It's better than nothing, and it costs you £55 and five minutes a week.
If you want something you don't have to think about — automatic daily backups, cloud copies, quarterly test restores, and someone who'll answer the phone when something breaks — that's what I do.
For most small businesses with 1–5 people, I can have a solid backup system set up in a couple of hours. If you want a NAS with cloud replication, it's a half-day job including the hardware setup. After that, I check in quarterly to make sure everything is still working. You get an email confirming your backup health, and you don't have to remember to do anything.
Here's roughly what it costs through me:
| What you get | My price |
|---|---|
| Setup — external drive backup (I bring the drive, set up the schedule, show you how to test it) | from £80 |
| Setup — cloud backup (Backblaze or iDrive, installed and configured per computer) | from £50/computer |
| Setup — NAS with cloud replication (includes hardware recommendation, RAID setup, backup schedule, quarterly check) | from £200 |
| Microsoft 365 cloud-to-cloud backup (Datto or Veeam, per user) | from £30/user |
| Quarterly backup health check (test restore, verify cloud sync, report) | £30/quarter |
Plus the cost of the hardware or cloud subscription — I don't mark those up. You pay whatever Backblaze or Amazon charges.
A few things worth knowing before you start
Don't back up everything — be selective
Backing up your entire computer sounds thorough, but it wastes space and slows things down. You don't need a backup of Windows itself, your installed programs, or temporary files. Focus on the irreplaceable stuff: documents, photos, emails, databases, and configuration files you can't easily recreate.
Encrypt your offsite backup
If your backup leaves the building — cloud storage, a drive at home — it should be encrypted. Most cloud backup services do this automatically. If you're copying files to an external drive you take home, use BitLocker (built into Windows Pro) or VeraCrypt (free) to lock the drive. If someone steals it from your car, they can't read it.
Keep your backup software updated
Backup software gets security updates like everything else. An out-of-date backup agent is a liability. Set it to auto-update or check quarterly.
Write down how to restore
One A4 page, laminated, kept in the office and at home. Step-by-step instructions for restoring from your backup. Include the passwords for your backup accounts or encryption keys (stored separately — a sealed envelope in a safe place). If you're hit by a bus tomorrow, someone else needs to know how to get the business data back.