Choosing to use offsite tape storage to archive your data backups is a wise move for many businesses, particularly those that collect customer data or operate in the financial sector. However, navigating through the offsite storage industry is not always the easiest task, and can easily become both frustrating and expensive if not handled correctly. This is particularly true and acute for smaller businesses and start-up companies.

In general there are a few guidelines that your company can follow to ensure secure offsite tape storage without as much hassle or as many expenses. In general, the key lies in the service-level agreement. Most third party archives will have set fees for services like storage, pick-up and recovery, but these can be minimized by negotiating the stipulations and regularity of your data pick-ups. The better a deal you negotiate, the faster you will get recovery data and the less money you will spend each month on courier fees.

However, all of that is for naught if you fail to follow a couple of simple security procedures. First of all, remember that all tape backups require a lot of human intervention to store and recover. As such it is a wise idea to always encrypt your data to ensure that it can never be accessed without your permission. It is also important that you choose a storage location that is geographically distant from your business headquarters in order to ensure that any natural disasters that could damage your original data does not impact your backup data. This means don’t store your tapes on the same earthquake fault line that your office is built over! That might seem obvious, but you would be amazed how often it is a problem.

These tips are hardly the end-all of data storage advice, but they are good starting points for a company looking to store their backups more securely. Be smart about your data and your company will be much more prepared for any eventualities.