Cheap & Best Backup Storage in UK

What to Consider When Comparing Backup Storage Rental Services?

For any business, a data loss is one of the worst-case scenarios, causing significant damages ranging from loss of customer trust to a substantial impact on revenue. From a legal perspective, commercial providers are obligated to securely store important information such as contracts and invoices over extended periods.

The simplest and most reliable solution for tasks of this nature continues to be renting affordable backup storage to independently secure all essential data and be able to restore it in case of an issue.

What Are the Different Methods for Data Backup?

Generally, it is important to distinguish between two different approaches used for data backup. A full backup includes all available information, allowing for a system reset from this data. However, this method requires a significant amount of disk space as a complete copy of all files is made each time. On the other hand, an incremental backup only archives changes compared to an earlier point in time. While this method saves a lot of storage capacity, it does not allow for a complete reconstruction of information if the original data is no longer available.

What Are the Advantages of Renting Backup Storage?

Backup storage refers to a VPS Hosting primarily designed for high storage capacity, serving as external and secure disk space independent of the core system, storing system-critical information or multimedia content according to its configuration.

It is ideal for reliable data backup, archiving a specific state at a particular time and reconstructing it when needed. However, for practical integration with an IT system, the available interfaces (APIs) provided by the rented backup storage server for connecting to other IT structures must be considered.

Backup Storage for rent typically has high bandwidth and incurs significantly lower costs compared to, for example, web space or a Virtual Private Server with a similar storage capacity. It is therefore also suitable in many cases as a file server for large files such as video streams or DVD images or software, and reduces the computational load and traffic on the actual web server. As a result, renting a Backup Storage also speeds up the Server Response Time (SRT) and can have a positive impact on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for commercial websites.

The main argument for renting a Backup Storage lies in its multiple and redundant data backup in productive systems. In the event of a website compromise, such as a cyber-attack, there are often longer periods between the initial breach in an IT network and the discovery of the vulnerability. Continuous and backups going back weeks not only facilitate forensic data analysis: they also represent a prerequisite for being able to restore a clean and secure environment in minimal maintenance time.

What to consider when renting a Backup Storage?

Technically, a Backup Storage for rent is an additional web space that ideally resides on a different infrastructure than the mirrored dedicated or virtual server. A fundamental requirement is sufficient storage capacity to be able to store images of productive servers multiple times in chronological order. For creating backups, each Backup Storage for rent uses predefined protocols that significantly determine its suitability for a specific purpose. One of the most important among them is the FTP standard, which enables fast and secure data transfer at a low access level.

The creation of backups as a security measure can often be automated - for example, through plugins for Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress or Joomla. This is only possible if the backup storage for rent provides compatible software interfaces for data transfer. The current standard for this includes encrypted connections via protocols such as FTPS, HTTPS, or SFTP, and authentication through secure passwords or a digital key. It is advisable to check the available services and transfer methods such as SFTP, Samba Windows Share (SMB), or Network File System (NFS) if specific solutions are already being pursued.

Who is the ideal provider to rent backup storage from?

The conditions and costs for renting backup storage fluctuate significantly in day-to-day operations but decrease in the long term due to more efficient hard drive storage. Therefore, it is advisable to periodically review the current web hoster at longer intervals - for example, before each contract renewal - to find the perfect provider. The time and effort required to set up rented backup storage is comparatively low, and data migration is usually straightforward. Therefore, an important criterion in any selection is the contract duration and the option to switch to other packages.

In web hosting, SSDs have become the standard for hard drive storage because they have significantly lower access times and higher transfer rates. However, when it comes to data backup, the storage capacity is the focus and should be the deciding factor. In many cases, the bandwidth for individual connections from the web host is throttled to 1000 Mbit/s or lower to evenly distribute resources. An additional investment in SSD storage is worthwhile for rented backup storage only in exceptional cases and offers little to no concrete advantages.

Also, consider affordable Storage Servers as an alternative.