We are a gold reseller in the UK for the excellent BackupAssist software package, and can help with configuring it to work with new or existing backup hardware you need/have. It provides a simple and clear means of scheduling backups to a variety of destinations, be it conventional tape or increasingly more commonplace using NAS hard drives or local removable hard drives. It can even be used to backup to online backup locations across the internet.

Often, people think of tape as a dinosaur when compared to the new range of fast, direct-access storage media. Yet tape is ideal for backup. Businesses use tape because they find it to be a cost-effective backup solution, and tape backup will continue to be used for some time to come. Nonetheless, you'll probably be interested to know that there are several alternatives to tape, some of which may be more suitable for your business.

Backup to NAS devices

NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices are attached directly to your network and can act as a backup store. Obviously, it's very convenient to backup files to NAS, as there's no disks or tapes or insert and remove. There are many NAS devices specially designed for small businesses. An excellent choice for network backup.

Backup to removable hard drive

In April 2004, Iomega released the REV drive - a new storage device that has greater capacity than tape and is 5 to 8 times faster. They have continued to update this drive range, the most recent third generation version gives 120GB storage per cartridge. Key features are:

• Server backup to REV drive is much faster than tape

• The removable REV drive units are more durable

• No cleaning is required

• Connection via USB for external drives or SATA for internal

Backup to REV drive may in fact prove more cost-effective for your business than tape, depending on your backup scheme and other factors. Otherwise, backup to REV is very similar to tape backup in principle.

Final notes

As always, invest in a quality backup program. Many backup program will support a number of backup devices, so there's no need to buy specialist REV backup software or NAS backup software.

Competitively priced from £125 for a single server/computer license. Please contact us for further details.

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