Data Backup vs Disaster Recovery: What We Teach Almost Every New Client
After nearly twenty years supporting businesses across Victoria, Vancouver and the rest of BC, we've noticed something consistent. When we start working with a new client, most people use the terms data backup and disaster recovery as if they mean the same thing. It's an easy mistake to make, because both are part of keeping your systems safe, and both get talked about together.
But they're not the same.
Not even close.
A lot of our early work with new clients involves untangling this misunderstanding, reviewing what they have in place, and filling the gaps. Many teams believe that "having backups" means they're fully protected, only to discover there's no actual plan for getting systems running again in an emergency.
We want to save other business owners from that surprise, so this article explains the difference in clear, practical language and outlines what every small business in BC should have in place.
The Car Analogy: Understanding What a Backup Really Is
Here's the best way we've found to explain the difference between backups and disaster recovery.
Think of your business as a car.
Many business owners believe that having a "data backup" is like having a duplicate car sitting in your garage, ready to drive the moment your main car breaks down. You'd just hop into the backup car and keep going with minimal interruption.
That's not what a data backup is.
A data backup is actually like having all your car parts carefully organized on a shelf. If your original car dies, you haven't lost the pieces that make up the car—the engine, transmission, wheels, seats, electronics—they're all safely stored. But here's the catch: those parts need to be reassembled before you can drive anywhere.
This is where business owners get disappointed. They thought they had a backup car ready to go, but they find out they have a shelf of car parts. Now they're dealing with:
- Downtime while the car is being rebuilt
- Expense for the mechanics and labor to put it back together
- Complexity figuring out how all the pieces fit together
- Discovery that some parts might be missing or incompatible
And here's something even more concerning that we see all the time: many businesses don't even realize their "parts shelf" is empty.
The Problem Nobody Talks About: Backups That Stopped Working Months Ago
We can't count how many times we've walked into a business and asked about their backups, only to hear: "Oh yes, we have backups running. They've been set up for years."
Then we check, and discover the backup stopped working six months ago. Or a year ago. Sometimes longer.
Why does this happen?
- The backup software updated and broke the configuration
- The storage device filled up and nobody got an alert
- An employee who managed it left the company
- The backup was running, but not actually capturing the right data
- Network changes made the backup location unreachable
The backup system shows a green light on someone's screen somewhere, so everyone assumes it's working. But nobody is actively monitoring it daily. Nobody is testing it regularly. Nobody is verifying that the parts are actually being saved to the shelf.
Then disaster strikes—ransomware, hardware failure, accidental deletion—and the terrible discovery happens: there's nothing to restore. The shelf is empty, or the parts are so old they're useless.
This is why monitoring and testing aren't optional extras—they're fundamental requirements.
Backup: Your Parts Shelf
A data backup is simply a copy of your information. If something gets deleted, corrupted or locked by ransomware, a backup gives you something to recover from.
It protects you from things like:
- Accidental deletion
- Hardware failures
- Software issues
- Ransomware or other cyber incidents
- An employee dragging the wrong folder to the trash
Think of backup as "Here are copies of all your parts, safely stored on a shelf."
But remember: Having the parts doesn't mean you have a functioning car. The parts need to be put back together, and that takes time, expertise, and a clear plan.
Backups are essential, but they're only the first piece of the continuity puzzle.
Disaster Recovery: Your Rebuild Plan (And Ideally, A Loaner Car)
If backup is the parts shelf, disaster recovery (DR) is the detailed instruction manual for rebuilding your car—plus ideally, having a loaner vehicle to drive while repairs are underway.
This is where we see the biggest gaps with new clients. They assume that because they have backups somewhere, they'll be able to get everything restored quickly. In reality, a proper disaster recovery plan answers questions like:
- Which systems need to come back online first (What parts of the car are most critical? Can you at least get it running even if the radio doesn't work yet?)
- How long can your business operate without specific tools or data (How long can you go without a car before it seriously impacts your life?)
- Who is responsible for taking action and in what order (Who's doing the rebuilding? What's the sequence?)
- Where your backups are stored and how to access them (Where's the parts shelf? Do we have the key?)
- How long a full recovery should take (How long until the car is drivable? How long until it's fully restored?)
The best disaster recovery plans go even further: They provide you with a "loaner car" while your main car is being rebuilt. In technical terms, this means having systems that can be brought online quickly—sometimes within hours—so your business can keep operating while full restoration happens in the background.
Disaster recovery is about speed and coordination. It's what limits downtime and protects the business side of the equation, not just the data.
Backup gives you the parts.
Disaster recovery gives you the rebuild process and ideally a temporary vehicle to keep you moving.
You can't have a reliable continuity plan without both.
The Reality of Backup and Recovery: Pick Two
There's a fundamental truth in technology (and in most projects) that business owners need to understand. It's often called the "project management triangle," and it applies perfectly to backup and disaster recovery:
You can have it Fast, Cheap, or High Quality—but you can only pick two.
Let's break down what this means for your business continuity:
Fast and Cheap: The quality and scope will suffer
This is the scenario where you have basic backups running to an external hard drive, with no disaster recovery plan. When disaster strikes, you have data, but recovery is chaotic. Systems might be rebuilt incorrectly. Critical configurations might be missed. You're cutting corners to save money and get back online quickly, but the result is compromised quality and likely ongoing issues.
Fast and High Quality: The cost will be high
This is the gold standard. You have enterprise-grade backup systems, redundant infrastructure, monitored and tested recovery procedures, and the ability to failover to backup systems within hours or even minutes. When disaster strikes, you barely skip a beat. But this level of protection requires significant investment in technology, expertise, and ongoing management.
Cheap and High Quality: It will take a long time
This is where you have good backups and a solid plan, but you're relying on more basic infrastructure and manual processes to keep costs down. When disaster strikes, you have everything you need to rebuild properly, but it's going to take days or potentially weeks. You're prioritizing thoroughness and accuracy over speed, and keeping costs reasonable by accepting longer recovery times.
The key is being honest about which two you're choosing—and making sure your business can survive with that choice.
If you're choosing "cheap and fast," understand that you're gambling with quality. If you're choosing "cheap and high quality," make sure your business can afford several days of downtime. If you're choosing "fast and high quality," budget appropriately for enterprise solutions.
The worst scenario is thinking you've chosen "fast and high quality" because you have backups, but actually having "cheap and slow" because there's no real disaster recovery plan and nobody's monitoring whether those backups even work.
What to Consider for Backups (Your Parts Shelf)
Choose what matters most
Not every file or database needs the same level of backup attention. Identify the information that's absolutely essential for your day-to-day operations and make sure it receives priority. These are your critical car parts—the engine and transmission matter more than the floor mats.
Automate the process
Backups that rely on someone remembering to do them are risky. Automated backups are far more reliable and reduce the chance of human error. Your parts need to be saved to the shelf automatically, every single day.
Keep copies in more than one place
This includes on-site copies for quick restores and off-site or cloud backups in case something physically happens to your office. If all your backups live in one place, they're exposed to the same risks as your main systems. Don't keep all your spare parts in the same garage as your car.
Monitor and verify daily
This is the part most businesses skip, and it's the most important. You need someone—whether it's your IT team or a managed service provider—actively checking every single day that backups completed successfully. Not just looking at a green light, but verifying that data is actually being captured and can be restored.
Test your backups regularly
At least quarterly, actually try to restore something from your backups. Can you get a file back? Can you restore a database? Can you recover a full system? Testing is the only way to know your parts shelf isn't empty.
What to Consider for Disaster Recovery (Your Rebuild Plan)
Define your Recovery Time Objective (RTO)
Your RTO is how long your business can function without certain systems before things start breaking down. This is like asking: "How long can I go without a car before I lose my job, can't get groceries, or miss critical appointments?"
A realistic RTO guides how robust your recovery plan needs to be. If you can only be down for 4 hours, you need the "fast and high quality" approach with redundant systems. If you can survive for a few days, you have more options.
Define your Recovery Point Objective (RPO)
Your RPO is how much data you can afford to lose. If you back up once a day at midnight and disaster strikes at 5pm, you'll lose 17 hours of work. Can your business accept that? If not, you need more frequent backups.
Think of this as: "If my car is totaled, how recent do the replacement parts need to be?" Brand new parts? Parts from last week? Parts from last month?
Maintain redundancy
Store backups in multiple places and on different types of systems. This improves reliability and helps you recover even if one source fails. Have multiple parts shelves in different locations.
Document everything
Your disaster recovery plan should be a detailed document that anyone on your team (or any external IT provider) could follow. It should include:
- Step-by-step recovery procedures
- Login credentials and access information (stored securely)
- Contact information for key vendors and support
- Priority order for system restoration
- Who makes decisions and how to reach them
This is your rebuild manual. Without it, even having all the parts won't help.
Test your plan
A disaster recovery plan that has never been tested is essentially theory. Testing reveals missing steps, unclear responsibilities, or hidden issues that would slow everything down during a real emergency.
Run a disaster recovery test at least annually. Actually try to restore systems. Time how long it takes. See what breaks. Update your documentation based on what you learn.
Why This Matters for Local Businesses
Small and mid-sized businesses across BC rely heavily on their technology, whether it's a law office in Victoria, a dental clinic in Vancouver or a construction company working remotely across the province. When systems go down, most businesses feel the impact immediately.
Downtime doesn't just cost money. It affects customer experience, reputation, and your team's ability to work.
We've seen businesses lose entire days of productivity because they thought their backups would get them back online in an hour, but the reality was a multi-day rebuild process. We've seen businesses discover their backups hadn't worked in months, forcing them to recreate months of work manually or accept permanent data loss.
A backup without a recovery plan leads to longer outages and more stress.
A recovery plan without proper backups leaves you with nothing to restore.
Backups that aren't monitored and tested are just false security.
You need all three: backups, a recovery plan, and ongoing verification that both are working.
If you want a helpful outside resource, the Government of Canada's Get Cyber Safe Guide for Small and Medium Businesses is an excellent, plain-language overview of how to safeguard key information and build cyber resilience.
A Simple Way to Start Improving Your Continuity
Here's a quick roadmap that works for most BC businesses:
Step 1: Identify what data is business-critical (What are your most important car parts?)
Step 2: Set up automated backups and store them in more than one place (Build your parts shelf, and a backup parts shelf)
Step 3: Implement daily monitoring to verify backups are actually working (Don't just trust the green light)
Step 4: Document how you would restore systems during an outage (Write your rebuild manual)
Step 5: Define your RTO and RPO based on real business needs (Know how long you can be without your car)
Step 6: Test your recovery steps at least once a year (Actually try rebuilding the car)
Step 7: Make updates whenever your business or technology changes (Keep your manual current)
Step 8: Decide which two of Fast/Cheap/Quality make sense for your business (Be honest about the tradeoffs)
Even small improvements can dramatically reduce the impact of an unexpected outage.
If You Would Like Support, We're Here When You Need Us
Most business owners don't have the time or interest to build and maintain a full backup and disaster recovery strategy on their own. That's completely normal. It's also why so many clients come to us for help creating something that's practical, reliable and tailored to how their business actually works.
We help businesses across BC:
- Set up automated, monitored backups that we verify daily
- Build realistic disaster recovery plans based on their actual RTO and RPO needs
- Test recovery procedures regularly so there are no surprises
- Choose the right balance of speed, cost, and quality for their specific situation
- Understand what they're actually protected against (and what they're not)
We've helped dozens of businesses discover that their backups stopped working months ago—before a disaster forced that discovery. We've guided companies through actual disaster recovery scenarios and refined their plans based on real-world testing.
If you want a second opinion on your current setup, help improving your plan, or someone to take the technical work off your plate entirely, you can reach out any time. We're always happy to help BC businesses strengthen their resilience.
Connect with our team today if you'd like help building or reviewing your backup and disaster recovery plan.
Don't wait until disaster strikes to find out your parts shelf is empty—or that you have no idea how to rebuild the car.
