Have a Backup for Your Backup

We often talk about the need to back up your data, but did you know that it is also a best practice to back up your hardware? Backing up your hardware works differently than data backup; whereas data backup involves network devices and a cloud, backing up your hardware is a simple matter of having extra computer components on your premise.

If your IT budget is tight, then the thought of having a closet full of spare equipment may seem a bit impractical, but when you consider the cost of downtime, then having extra computers on hand begins to make sense. Businesses experience downtime when a task that is critical to operations cannot be worked on because of equipment failure.

Downtime costs twice as much as you would think. Not only do you have a loss of revenue associated with the time lost, but you also have employees on the clock and getting paid whether they can do their job or not. Even if a PC is down for only one hour, it will still be a major expense. To help you calculate the cost of your company's downtime, we want to share with you our trusty downtime math formulas:

Productivity Loss Formula
P = (Number of users affected) x (% of Productivity Loss) x (Average salary per hour) x (Duration of downtime)

Revenue Loss Formula
R = (Number of users affected) x (% of Revenue Loss) x (Average profit per employee per hour) x (Duration)

Overall Loss Due to Downtime
P + R = $$$

Take this final downtime figure into consideration and suddenly the cost of having an extra PC on standby to prevent downtime seems like a bargain!

One more additional downtime expense that you have to consider is the computer repair bill. Preferred has a great PC remote monitoring and maintenance service that will take every precaution possible to prevent downtime. This includes taking care of updates and maintenances remotely in order to keep computers running smoothly. We also feature remote support in the event that a problem does arise. We're able perform a complete maintenance from our end. Computer maintenance from Preferred also comes as a service plan so that you are not hit with an unexpected repair bill.

Even with our stellar remote service and Help Desk support, computer hardware does fail. When PC hardware goes down, then there is nothing that Preferred can do about it remotely. We'll then have to send our team over to physically take care of the issue. The good news is that by going through our managed services checklist, we will know what the problem is before we head out. The bad news is that a physical trip still counts as downtime.

We strive to fix your PC problem as fast as is humanly possible, but in times like this, having an extra PC around will save you downtime. Switching out a broken PC for a spare one will be a snap. A Backup and Disaster Recovery solution stores your data to the cloud, which means that all of your information will be accessible when you hook up a different PC to your network.

A spare backup computer is kind of like a spare tire; you don't need the newest and nicest one to get you a through a rough patch. Preferred can help you to find an inexpensive backup computer, server, or any other components that you will need in order to protect your business from downtime. Whenever you upgrade to a new computer, one best practice is to keep the old one in storage for backup purposes. Keeping an extra PC in an easily accessible place is a great hardware backup solution that will provide you with back up while we are backing you up.