Top 8 Small Business Backup Solutions (Cloud & On-Premises)

Backup solutions protect your small business from a wide range of disaster events. For example, combining backup software and hardware gives you peace of mind if team members accidentally delete data or make other critical mistakes.

Backup tools enable you to recover your data after a natural disaster damages your hard drives and other physical equipment. 

You can also improve data protection and safeguard your company against the growing threat of ransomware attacks — which affected 66% of organizations last year.

Get ready to explore the top SMB backup solutions for both on-premise and cloud environments, helping you make a more informed purchasing decision.

8 Best Small Business Backup Solutions

Data backup solutions help you backup data on your business premises or in a virtualized environment.

The best providers will keep your data safe by encrypting it and carrying out other security measures, ensuring unauthorized users can't access your information. 

Here are the top 8 SMB backup solutions based on features, capabilities, and ease of use. 

1. HYCU
2. Backblaze
3. iDrive
4. Carbonite
5. CrashPlan
6. Acronis
7. Azure Backup
8. Amazon S3

1. HYCU

HYCU is one the best SMB backup solutions because of its comprehensive data backup, reliable recovery options, ransomware protection, data encryption, data governance, and trustworthy infrastructure.

HYCU is the world's first and only data protection provider that scales to your data sources. Used by over 3,600 customers worldwide, including Toshiba and Honeywell, this Data Protection Platform as a Service removes data silos in your organization and helps you safeguard and recover more of your data than ever before. 

Here are some of the best features of HYCU's easy-to-use backup solution for small businesses:

Comprehensive Backup

HYCU provides an incredible range of backup tools for virtualized environments, including virtual machines (VMs), applications, and critical data. You can replicate and store your most sensitive information and quickly access it after a disaster such as a fire, flood, data breach, downtime, or power outage. 

Efficient Backup Techniques

Multiple ways to back up data include deduplication, full backups, incremental backups, and differential backups. With HYCU, you can choose the backup method that best suits your business and protect more of your critical data. 

Reliable Recovery Options

Backing up data is just the first step of your backup and recovery process. HYCU lets you retrieve backed-up data in the event of data loss, cybercrime, system failures, and natural disasters and helps prevent these incidents from impacting day-to-day business operations. 

Ransomware Protection

Ransomware is not a matter of if, it's when. After an intrusion, you need to be able to recover as fast as possible. HYCU provides rapid recovery of business-critical data from immutable backups to ensure costly downtime is kept to a minimum.

Data Encryption

Sharing your valuable data with a third-party backup solution provider can be a concern, especially if that company doesn't take security as seriously as you do. HYCU uses strong encryption protocols to secure your information during the backup and transfer process and prevent cyber criminals from viewing data sets. 

Compliance and Data Governance

Sharing information with third-party providers can also result in data governance issues. Depending on your region and industry, there might be restrictions about what type of data you can share from one location to another. You might face an expensive penalty if you break these rules.

HYCU's SMB backup solutions help you adhere to various data governance frameworks, including GDPR, and ensure you only back up, store and retrieve data according to the law. 

Reliable Infrastructure

HYCU's dependable and scalable infrastructure improves the safety and availability of all your business data. You can access the information you need at any time without experiencing downtime and ensure your data doesn't go missing during the transfer process. HYCU offers its reliable infrastructure and various backup and recovery services at an affordable cost. 

2. Backblaze

Backblaze is a reputable cloud backup service provider with a simple learning curve. It offers full backups of multiple operating systems, such as Windows, Mac, and Linux, helping you replicate and store your system data in a secure virtualized environment.

Backblaze can send you a hard drive to download your data if it takes too long to back up your operating system. Mail it back, and the company will transfer your information to their powerful data centers. 

Here are some features of Backblaze for small businesses:

Continuous Backup

Backblaze offers continuous backup (or continuous data protection), meaning you can back up data to its infrastructure every time a file changes. That makes it easier to restore your data and systems to a previous period if you experience a disaster event. 

Unlimited Storage

One of the best features of Backblaze's SMB backup solutions is unlimited backup storage, allowing you to replicate and store as much data as you like for one monthly price. It doesn't matter how large your data and system files are because the company has no storage limit. Backblaze can meet your needs if you have a large amount of data in your small business, perhaps from databases and CRM systems.

Ransomware Protection

Backblaze protects your small business against ransomware by creating virtual air gaps that reduce the chances of cyber criminals modifying or deleting your information and then asking you to pay a fee. If you experience a ransomware attack, the company's instant recovery feature lets you access your most recent backup and retrieve the information you need. 

3. IDrive

IDrive is a versatile on-premises backup tool for small businesses. That means, unlike Backblaze and other SMB backup solutions, it helps you back up your files to a local device in your business location. On-premises backup might suit your company if you don't want to transfer data to a third-party cloud provider for security or data governance reasons. 

Like Backblaze, IDrive is compatible with operating systems such as Windows, Mac, and Linux. You can copy data from your system, store it in a local device, and access it after a critical event. 

Here are some of the features of IDrive:

Incremental Backups

IDrive makes it easy to perform incremental backups, which involve copying and storing the data that's changed since your last full or incremental backup. For example, you can replicate data from the most recent full backup you completed rather than carry out a full backup again. Incremental backups are quicker and require less bandwidth and computing resources than full backups, making them a good idea for many small businesses. 

Disk Imaging

Disk imaging is the process of replicating a hard drive's contents and storing them in one compressed file on another hard drive. This method can be effective for backing up data on your premises and preserving it in case a critical event occurs. It's simple to start the disk imaging process with IDrive's desktop application. You just sign in, provide your private encryption key (if you have one), and click the 'Clone/Computer Backup' button. 

AES Encryption

The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is an encryption method that uses the same private key to both encrypt and decrypt data. This standard prevents hacking attempts because it utilizes key sizes of higher lengths. IDrive uses 256-bit AES when transferring and storing your data in its data centers. 

4. Carbonite

Carbonite is a cloud backup service that specifically caters to small businesses. As a result, it has a straightforward learning curve and performs simple backups.

However, you can still perform more complex data backups if you like. It integrates with operational systems like Windows and Mac, allowing you to move data files to the cloud in a few clicks. 

Ransomware Protection

Carbonite's cloud-based intelligence detects the likelihood of ransomware attacks and can stop them in their tracks. You will also receive notifications on your dashboard of thwarted ransomware attempts. If you experience an attack, Carbonite can restore your system to a Recovery Point Objective (RFO) — the last time you had clean versions of your files. 

Automatic Backups

Scheduling regular backups can be a chore. That's why Carbonite performs automatic backups based on your requirements, removing the need for human intervention. You can customize your backups however you like from your dashboard.

Ease of Use

Carbonite is an extremely easy platform for small businesses to use. It offers a one-click setup and then automatically updates without any effort from you. The platform's interface is also easy to navigate. 

5. CrashPlan

CrashPlan is a reliable cloud SMB backup solution used by businesses such as Techradar and Inc.

It effectively backs up data and stores it in the cloud with little input, so you don't need to do any heavy lifting. CrashPlan is also reliable because it offers 256-bit AES encryption, preventing cybercriminals from accessing your data. Use this platform to back up various operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and Mac.

Automatic and Continuous Backups

CrashPlan's SMB backup solutions continuously run in the background and replicate and store your data at regular intervals, removing the need to perform manual backups. You can also schedule automatic backups based on your preferred schedule, such as full backups every fortnight. 

Flexible Retention Options

You can tell CrashPlan to retain data for a specific period and then delete it. That can be beneficial when adhering to data governance frameworks like GDRP that require you to only store data for a limited time. CrashPlan has various data retention options that you can access from your dashboard. 

Easy File Recovery

There are several ways you can recover your files after a critical incident with CrashPlan. For example, you can restore data to another device or via a web browser. 

6. Acronis Cyber Protect

Acronis Cyber Protect is a comprehensive on-premises and cloud backup solution for small businesses like yours. You can back up data to a virtualized environment or copy and store it on a local device. Navigating this platform is a little more complicated than CrashPlan.

However, you will find a wealth of features that improve your backup and recovery workflows. 

Backup and Recovery Options

There are multiple methods for backup and recovery with Acronis Cyber Protect. You can back up individual files or entire systems as a single file and then retrieve the information you need after a disaster. Plus, you can copy and store data across cloud environments, on-premises environments, mobile environments, and more. 

Integrations

Acronis integrates with over 20 popular platforms, including Microsoft Windows and VMware, allowing you to safeguard more system files than ever. The company integrates applications into your backup environment and provides continuous and comprehensive protection.

7. Microsoft Azure Backup

Microsoft Azure Backup is a hybrid backup solution for SMBs, leveraging both cloud and on-premises. You can use this platform to store backed-up data in a cloud environment and keep an additional copy of that data locally.

Doing so provides full protection after a data disaster, allowing you to access multiple copies of your information. 

Azure Backup functions by automatically allocating and managing backup storage based on your requirements. Its pay-as-you-go model means you only pay for the storage you need.

Azure Backup can accommodate your data backup needs as your business grows. This solution also integrates with various platforms and environments for enhanced performance, such as the Windows Server backup tools you might already use. 

Server Backup Storage

Microsoft Azure Backup can copy and store data from your server, such as system files, user data, and application data. You can schedule these backups to run manually or automatically. 

Disaster Recovery 

Azure's disaster recovery tools are highly available and reliable, helping you access your backed-up information after a data incident. Plus, Microsoft regularly tests your systems and files to minimize the impact of failing components in the first place. 

Replication

Azure offers three types of replication to keep your data and storage available when you need it. These replication types are locally-resident storage (LRS), geo-redundant storage (GRS), and zone-redundant storage (ZRS). 

8. Amazon S3

Amazon S3 makes this list of the best SMB backup solutions because it offers reliability and scalability. It's compatible with different operating systems and integrates with cloud services, especially AWS.

Although not the easiest platform to operate — it requires deep knowledge of public cloud storage containers — you can trust Amazon S3 for backups if you already use it to store data as objects in buckets. 

Related Read: AWS Cloud Backup Best Practices (Risks + Limitations)

Backup Services

With Amazon S3, you can benefit from continuous backups that run in the background and retrieve stored data to a specific time before a disaster event. The platform provides backups for various S3 bucket types, including user-defined metadata, object data, access control lists, and tags. 

Archiving

Amazon S3 lets you back up and archive data that you might not currently have a use for and access it at a later date via S3 Glacier. That can help you adhere to data governance principles in your region. 

High Storage Space Options 

You can back up and store unlimited data objects in Amazon S3. (However, the largest object you can upload at one time is 5 GB.) This makes the platform a good option for storing large amounts of backed-up data in a secure environment.

Other Types of SMB Backup Solutions

Many of the platforms in the above list of SMB backup solutions are cloud-based, allowing you to copy and store data in a virtualized environment through a third-party provider.

However, you might want to choose an on-premises or hybrid backup tool instead. 

On-Premises Backup Solutions

• On-premises backup solutions help you copy and store data to a local device such as a data center, external hard drive, or tape.

• Although physical devices can be susceptible to fire, floods, and other damage, on-premise SMB backup solutions can offer benefits such as faster recovery times.

• That's because, unlike the cloud, on-premise recovery doesn't require an internet connection.

• On-premise SMB backup solutions can also help you keep data on your business premises rather than moving it to a third-party provider, increasing data control and improving data compliance. 

• Physical hardware can sometimes be more expensive than virtualizing your storage resources.

• However, you can maintain and troubleshoot equipment like external hard drives and data centers on your own terms and solve any backup infrastructure issues more quickly than a third-party cloud provider. 

Hybrid Backup Solutions

• Hybrid backup gives you the best of cloud and on-premises SMB backup solutions, allowing you to achieve optimal data protection and business continuity.

• You can do this by backing up data on both physical storage devices and in virtualized environments, either simultaneously or depending on your data needs. 

• For example, you can use a network-attached storage (NAS) device to hold business-critical data and back up the same data to the cloud for an extra layer of security.

• This way, you can access data even if a fire destroys your NAS or your cloud provider experiences a cyberattack.

SaaS Backup Solutions

• SaaS is a subset of cloud computing that requires a monthly subscription to access cloud-based backup solutions.

• The SaaS model can free up IT resources in your organization because a third-party provider will manage all your backup responsibilities.

• The best SaaS providers offer scalability, advanced data loss protection, a simple and affordable pricing structure, lots of data backup features, ease of use, and the ability to store data off-site and in the cloud. 

HYCU: The Ideal SMB Cloud Backup Provider

While all the companies on the above list help you replicate and store your most important data, HYCU takes backup and recovery to the next level.

The platform offers comprehensive data backup, reliable recovery options, data governance compliance, data encryption, trustworthy infrastructure, and more.

You can protect all your backup workloads from a single pane of glass and prevent the worst-case scenario from happening. If it does, you can access an incredible range of recovery tools to continue business operations. 

HYCU was built to streamline data protection. Try it for yourself now by signing up for a free demo.