The days of the floppy disk are well over. Long ago, back in the earliest times for computers this was one of the only ways to store data. As the use and dependence on computers has increased, so too as the amount of data that we generate through them.

And all that data needs to be stored somewhere.

Safe data use and storage has been a common topic on this blog. Today we look at some of the common ways that you can store data – and how we consider them from a security perspective.

As always, whether you are holding sensitive data on clients or on staff you should ensure you have a strong data protection policy and always follow the rules around GDPR.

So here is our overview of some of the places you can store data, and why that might or might not be a good idea.

Truly, the USB stick is a floppy disk for the modern age. Small, compact and transportable, if you need to move or store a small amount of data and you want to store it off of your computer – this could be a good option.

This option is also relatively inexpensive (dependent on how much storage you’re after), however it does come with its downsides.

Being small and transportable, USB sticks can be easily lost. They can also be plugged into nearly all computers, so if you haven’t got the data protected by password it could easily be compromised.

As data storage options go, this isn’t particularly secure.

You may wish to store your data locally on the computer. Up until quite recently, and the advent of cloud storage, this is how a lot of data was stored.

Upsides are that, presuming you have a secure password, data stored on your computer should only be accessible to you.

However, there are more downsides. Having excessive data stored on your computer locally can slow it down and make it more ineffective. Not to mention there are the obvious issues that this method shares with the USB stick of the computer being lost or stolen.

Added to this the issues that could arise from the computer being compromised by malware and its clear this is not an attractive option.

An external hard drive can be a much better option for storage than a USB or saving direct to your computer. Typically they have much more storage space that you would expect from the previous two options.

However, with storage space abundant, they can be lacking when it comes to ease of access. Most require you to plug directly into the computer, making them less than ideal when supporting multiple people working on the same documents. Or indeed, working on live documents at all.

They lend themselves more to being a very good option of having your own local backup of data.

All of the above should indicate the positives of using a cloud based system for your data. If you’re using one of the big operating systems like Office 365 or Google Suite its likely that you’re already using a cloud system for your documents by default.

Comparative to other solutions, cloud based storage will give you good flexibility of access for the data – so is an excellent option  if you need to work collaboratively on documents.

The additional bonus is that your data is stored externally to the computer. This can give you an extra level of reassurance against loss of data through a USB or laptop going missing or getting stolen.

If you have read this and think you could use some help regarding how your business stores data, WebbyTech is here to help.

You can view our services page to see how we support businesses with their data needs. For a no obligations conversation, contact us directly here.