When it comes to the critical task of backing up data, nearly half of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the US say using both on-site and online solutions are important and necessary, according to a new survey by Clutch, a B2B research firm. In fact, many SMBs steadfastly hold to on-site backup, with 42% of those surveyed reporting that it’s more important than online backup.
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n the past two years alone, 63% of SMBs have adopted cloud-based backup solutions, according to Clutch’s findings. Despite this surge, nearly 90% of SMBs continue to back up their data both online and on-site. The trend is to be expected, say cloud backup and disaster recovery thought leaders.

“It’s natural for business owners to take a cautious approach to adopting technology, especially when it comes to securing their critical business data,” said Mark Anderson, co-founder and IT srategist at Anderson Technologies. “SMBs are reluctant to abandon on-site backup and adopt cloud-based backup exclusively, mainly due to concerns about security and loss of control over important data.”

“The Cloud can be a double-edged sword,” said Steve Woodward, chief technology officer of SkySync. “Some small business IT teams will be familiar with the workings of the Cloud while others may be afraid of the unknown.”

SMBs that back up data in the Cloud, tend to choose consumer-facing solutions, according to the survey. Apple iCloud (47%), Google Drive (36%), and Dropbox (35%) rank as the top three online backup services used by SMBs. All three typically meet the more basic backup and data recovery needs of SMBs.

“The prevalence of these three services indicates that companies are focused on performing more file-level backups versus ‘bare-metal’ backups, [or the full recovery of an entire operating system],” said Anderson.

Consumer-facing solutions are popular in the SMB market because employees are often familiar with the options, having used them elsewhere or for personal data management. This often influences an SMB’s IT team to apply the service throughout the company, a practice Steve Woodward of SkySync calls, the ‘bring your own service’ approach.

Clutch’s SMB online backup survey consisted of 304 respondents who use cloud-based, online backup solutions at companies with 1-500 employees.
The full results can be found at https://clutch.co/cloud/backup#survey.