Equipment needed
Backup hardware and technology must be prioritised as a key budget item, as it offers a fundamental step to ensuring business continuity of your practice.
You must have appropriate backup hardware and software in order to perform backups. Timely backups may require several backup devices and sets of backup media.
There are several types of backup hardware:
- portable hard drives
- USBs
- transfer of data to another computer or hard drive (i.e. network backup)
- or data backup to the cloud.
It is recommended that you use different types of backup media to provide you with multiple options for restoring data and to keep your backup media up to date with the technology available.
Your data storage strategy and the types of backup media you use will depend on the volume of data and available budget.
See the Types of backup module for more detailed information on the benefits and challenges of each.
Backup rotation
More than one backup method should be used, if it is practical to do so. Backup media should be cycled, or rotated, so that there are multiple backup copies of the practice data at any point in time.
Avoid offshore data storage where possible
It is essential to consider where your practice’s backed-up data is held. Online and cloud servers may be located outside of Australia. It is the responsibility of each general practice to ensure that their information is stored only in countries with privacy protections that are compatible with Australian law.