{"id":32686,"date":"2026-10-07T18:13:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T16:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eu.wedoback.com\/?page_id=32686"},"modified":"2026-10-07T18:37:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T16:37:15","slug":"backup","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/eu.wedoback.com\/en\/guides\/backup\/","title":{"rendered":"The IT backup guide"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Home<\/a>\u203a<\/span>Guides<\/a><\/p>

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The IT backup guide<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Understand what a real backup is, where to store it, how long to keep it and how to protect it from ransomware.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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What is an IT backup?<\/b>A backup is a restorable copy, kept separate from the original, that lets you return to an earlier state after a failure, an error or an attack.<\/span><\/a>What is the difference between backup and replication?<\/b>Replication copies the current state, errors included. Backup keeps earlier versions so you can restore a healthy state.<\/span><\/a>What is the difference between backup and archiving?<\/b>Backup gets the business running again. Archiving keeps a document intact for as long as the business or the law requires.<\/span><\/a>What backup strategy for an SME?<\/b>An SME first protects the systems people need to work, with an offsite history, an unmodifiable copy and a restore test.<\/span><\/a>How long should you keep your backups?<\/b>Keep a few weeks of backups to get back to work, and separate, longer-term archiving only for documents that must serve as evidence.<\/span><\/a>How many backups should you keep?<\/b>Keep at least three copies of your data, one offsite and one that cannot be erased, and enough dates to go back to before the incident.<\/span><\/a>Where should you store your backups?<\/b>Store one copy outside the building and outside the administration network, ideally encrypted and impossible to erase with everyday accounts.<\/span><\/a>Should you outsource your backups?<\/b>Yes, if a disaster or ransomware on your internal network must leave an intact copy. A local copy remains useful for restoring a file quickly.<\/span><\/a>Why make an offsite backup?<\/b>An offsite backup survives fire, flooding and an attack that encrypts everything reachable on the local network.<\/span><\/a>How do you protect your backups against ransomware?<\/b>Keep a copy off the network, block its deletion for a set period, separate accounts and check that a pre-attack version can be restored.<\/span><\/a>What is an immutable backup?<\/b>An immutable backup cannot be modified or deleted for a set period, even by an administrator. Definition, limitations and implementation.<\/span><\/a>What is WORM storage?<\/b>WORM (write once, read many) storage accepts a single write, then only reads, until the end of a retention period.<\/span><\/a>Immutable backup: how long should data be retained?<\/b>Against ransomware, lock for 30 to 90 days. For a legal obligation, lock for the period set by law, and only the documents concerned.<\/span><\/a>How should you back up a physical server?<\/b>Back up the image of the physical server, not just its files, and keep an offsite copy so you do not have to reinstall the system by hand.<\/span><\/a>What backup do you need for a virtual machine?<\/b>Back up a virtual machine with a tool that understands its state, and check that it restarts somewhere other than on the original hypervisor.<\/span><\/a>How do you back up a NAS?<\/b>A NAS is not a backup. Copy its shares and configuration elsewhere, or a NAS failure takes out the originals and the only copy.<\/span><\/a>How do you back up Microsoft 365?<\/b>Back up Exchange, OneDrive and SharePoint outside the Microsoft tenant, mailbox by mailbox, with a history the tenant admin cannot erase.<\/span><\/a>How do you back up Google Workspace?<\/b>Copy Gmail, Drive, Calendar and shared drives outside the Google domain, with a history independent of the recycle bins and Vault.<\/span><\/a>How do you test that a backup works?<\/b>A backup works if you restore a file, a database or a machine and the result is usable. A \u201csuccessful\u201d log is not enough.<\/span><\/a>How can you tell whether a business is really protected against data loss?<\/b>A business is protected if it can name its last successful restore test, the time taken, where the copies are and who holds the key.<\/span><\/a><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Protect your data with WeDoBack<\/h2>

Encrypted offsite backup, immutable storage, DRP and BCP: tell us about your servers and we will recommend the right combination.<\/p>

Request a quote<\/a>See offers and prices<\/a><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":32684,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"elementor_header_footer","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"The IT backup guide | WeDoBack","_seopress_titles_desc":"Understand what a real backup is, where to store it, how long to keep it and how to protect it from ransomware.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"https:\/\/www.wedoback.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/10\/wdb-og-sauvegarde.jpg","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"https:\/\/www.wedoback.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/10\/wdb-og-sauvegarde.jpg","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"class_list":["post-32686","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eu.wedoback.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eu.wedoback.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eu.wedoback.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eu.wedoback.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eu.wedoback.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eu.wedoback.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33038,"href":"https:\/\/eu.wedoback.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32686\/revisions\/33038"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eu.wedoback.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eu.wedoback.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}