How Fast Can You Get Your Data Back From The Cloud?

When considering a server backup solution in the cloud, one of the most overlooked issues that can impact your business recovery time is "How Fast Can You Get Your Data Back?" in the event of a Data Disaster.  In our on-going seminar series called "Protecting Your Business From A Data Disaster, we demonstrate to attendees that their ability to recover quickly may hinge on how long it will take to get their  data back from a cloud backup provider.  It's one of the most overlooked issues in Disaster Recovery.

If you're relying on a data download from the Internet to recover your server, consider these download estimates based upon available broadband alternatives:

Download Size            Medium             Download Duration *

1 MB File                     T-1 Line              < 1 Minute

100 MB File                 T-1 Line              +/- 12 Minutes
1 GB of data                T-1 Line              2.1 Hours
100 GB of data            T-1 Line              206.8 hours

50 GB                          T-3 Line              34.5 hours

100 GB                        T-3 Line              68.9 hours

50 GB                          20 mbps line         6.3 hours

100 GB                        20 mbps line       12.6 hours
300 GB                        20 mbps line       37.9 hours
500 GB                        20 mbps line       63.2 hours

* CAUTION!   Some broadband providers throttle back your download speed it you maintain a heavy traffic volume for too long.  This can extend your download times dramatically!

Remember, a reasonably mature file server usually contains between 50 GB and 500 GB of data, programs, O/S and associated files. It's not a small amount of data!

Will your off-site back-up vendor express ship your data?  How fast will they react?  Same day?  Next Business Day?   2 - 5 days?  Whenever they get around to it?  The answers may surprise you.

You need to factor these times into your recovery time calculation to know when you can reasonably expect to get your business back up and running in the event of a server failure or other Data Disaster.

At ACT, if you're using our DataVault Server Mirroring service or Server Fail-over service, we promise to deliver your backed up data images via one of our service trucks in a secure
storage device within 2 business hours if your business is within 50 miles of our data center.  If not, we'll have it delivered via next business day express delivery.