A backup you have never restored from is a hope
How to know your office data is actually recoverable before you need it.
Test the restore, not the backup
Ask most offices whether they have a backup and the answer is yes. Ask when they last restored a file from it and the room goes quiet. Backup software reports success every night; whether the data is complete and recoverable is a different question.
The offices that survive a ransomware attack or a failed drive have three things in common: a local copy for fast restores, an encrypted off-site copy for disasters, and a scheduled test where someone actually restores data and times how long it takes.
None of this is expensive. A properly configured NAS and cloud backup costs less per month than the coffee machine.
A backup setup worth trusting:
- Local NAS with RAID and snapshots for fast recovery.
- Encrypted off-site cloud copy with version history.
- Microsoft 365 / Google Workspace backed up separately.
- Immutable copies that ransomware cannot alter.
- A restore test every six months, with the results recorded.
The question to ask
Not "do we have a backup?" but "how long until we are working again?" — and whether anyone has proven the answer.
Frequently asked questions
Keep three copies of your data, on two different types of media, with one copy off-site. For an office this usually means live data, a local NAS backup and an encrypted cloud copy.
Business files and Microsoft 365 data should be backed up at least daily, with hourly snapshots on the NAS for the most active data. The right frequency is set by how much work you could afford to redo.
Yes, if the backup is a normal network share the malware can reach. Immutable snapshots, separate backup credentials and an off-site copy prevent this — which is why we configure all three.
Published Jun 25, 2026 · Last reviewed September 8, 2026
