Many small and mid-sized businesses neglect backup and disaster recovery (BDR) because it can seem like an intensive project, and business operations are already running smoothly. When an incident finally occurs, such as ransomware, a corrupted file server, an employee mistake, a failed hard drive, or a storm-related outage, the business can face a number of unforeseen challenges. Proper backup requires more than keeping copies of data. Businesses need to quickly restore data, and the restored data needs to actually be usable.
BDR needs to be fully understood and properly implemented to help a business recover successfully. These common misconceptions about backup and disaster recovery can create confusion for business owners about what they really need in order to protect their operations, customers, and cash flow.
The “We use the cloud, so we’re backed up” Myth
Using cloud apps does improve business data process in many ways, but using cloud services does not guarantee backup of business data. Many cloud platforms offer redundancy and availability, but they usually don’t protect business data from accidental deletion, malicious deletion, ransomware encryption synced across devices, or limited retention windows.
How this myth hurts businesses:
- A user deletes a folder and doesn’t notice for weeks
- A compromised account wipes files or emails
- A sync tool overwrites good data with corrupted data
- A specific version of a file from months ago can’t be restored
Steps to ensure protection:
- Confirm what the business cloud provider actually retains and for how long
- Add a dedicated backup solution for critical cloud services (email, shared drives, CRM exports, etc.)
- Use versioning and immutable storage where possible
- Test restores of individual files and full accounts, not just backup status
Cloud tools reduce some data loss risks, but they don’t eliminate a business’s need for regular independent backups.
The “Our external hard drive/USB backup is enough” Myth
Plugging in a drive and copying folders feels reassuring, and it can help with simple backup mistakes. However, this process is fragile as a business strategy for data backup. Physical drives can fail, get lost, are stolen, or in the worst cases, are connected during malware events and become encrypted.
How this myth hurts businesses:
- Backups run inconsistently (or stop entirely)
- The drive fails quietly, until someone tries to access the data
- Data is stored onsite and can be lost to theft/fire/flood
- Malware encrypts the attached backup drive
Steps to ensure protection:
- Follow the 3-2-1 rule: 3 copies of data, 2 different media, 1 offsite (or immutable)
- Automate backups with monitoring and alerts
- Keep at least one copy offline or immutable (can’t be changed/deleted)
- Encrypt backups at rest and in transit
External drives can be a helpful layer of backup, but a business cannot depend on them as only layer of backup.
The “We’ll rebuild if something happens, it’s cheaper” Myth
Having to rebuild in the event of a disaster drains small businesses. Rebuilding sounds cheaper than paying monthly for a robust backup and recovery plan. However, adding up the costs of downtime (lost sales, missed deadlines, payroll spent on non-productive hours, reputational damage, and the scramble to recover data with no guarantees) reveals how harmful this strategy can be to a business.
How this myth hurts businesses:
- Recovery takes days (or weeks) instead of hours
- Recent work that was not backed up properly gets lost
- Businesses pay emergency IT rates during a crisis
- Customers lose confidence seeing the business go dark
Steps to ensure protection:
- Define the RTO (Recovery Time Objective): how quickly systems must be back up
- Define the RPO (Recovery Point Objective): how much data the can afford to be lost
- Build the backup plan around business functions, not devices
- Price downtime realistically (hourly cost to the business) and compare it to prevention
For many SMBs, a single serious outage costs more than a year of properly protecting themselves with a BDR strategy.
The “Backups are running, so we’re safe” Myth
A failed backup that can’t actually restore could be misleading. Many businesses don’t discover they have bad backups until they try to recover them and are unable to do so. Backups can fail due to permissions changes, storage limits, misconfigured agents, corrupted snapshots, or incomplete job coverage.
How this myth hurts businesses:
- “Successful” backups might be excluding key folders or databases
- Backups may complete, but are corrupted or unusable
- Employees are unfamiliar with the restore steps during a crisis
- Restore may take far longer than expected due to bandwidth or hardware
Steps to ensure protection:
- Run scheduled restore tests (monthly/quarterly) for critical systems
- Test both small restores (single file) and full restores (server/image)
- Monitor backup logs and alert on failures, warnings, and missed windows
- Maintain a simple “disaster runbook” with who-to-call and what-to-restore-first
Businesses need more than the assurance that backups exist. Proper backup includes remaining continually prepared to restore any needed data quickly and reliably.
The “Ransomware won’t happen to us” Myth
Small businesses are targeted with ransomware precisely because they often have fewer defenses and fewer recovery options. Ransomware does not seek out huge enterprises as the only victims, but any target that has vulnerability.
How this myth hurts businesses:
- Risk of encrypted servers, endpoints, and shared drives
- Risk of encrypted backups if they are connected or not immutable
- Business operations can be frozen until payment or rebuild
- Potential compliance and breach notification issues can occur
Steps to ensure protection:
- Keep immutable/offline backups that ransomware can’t modify
- Segment networks so an infected machine can’t encrypt everything
- Use MFA, patching, and endpoint protection as baseline controls
- Limit admin privileges and lock down backup credentials separately
- Create an incident plan: isolate, assess, restore, report
Having proper ransomware preparedness as a small businesses is fundamentally a backup and recovery issue, beyond just security software.
The “Disaster recovery is only for big companies” Myth
Disaster recovery could sound like a form of enterprise jargon, but SMBs need disaster recovery strategies as much and often more than enterprises. DR is not necessarily a complicated implementation. Small businesses can deploy pre-planned restore priorities, documented steps, and the right tooling to bring the most important services back first.
How this myth hurts businesses:
- Plans are missing for when internet goes down or a server fails
- Teams have confusion over what to restore first
- Employees idle while leadership improvises
- Longer outages because no one rehearsed recovery
Steps to ensure protection:
- Identify your “Tier 1” systems (email, file access, line-of-business apps, POS, phones)
- Decide restore order and ownership (who approves, who executes)
- Keep credentials, vendor contacts, and configs accessible during an outage
- Consider a basic “warm spare” strategy for the most critical systems
Small businesses that implement even lightweight DR planning can dramatically reduces downtime and losses.
The “Our IT person will handle it if something happens” Myth
Whether a small business relies on an internal IT generalist, a part-time consultant, or a tech-savvy employee, having to depend on a single person in an IT crisis is a significant risk. Disasters may still happen at times when a single needed person might not be available (during vacations, weekends, or busy seasons). Furthermore, if the DR plan isn’t referencable for business but contained only in someone’s mind, it does not serve the business sufficiently.
How this myth hurts businesses:
- A single point of failure exists in IT knowledge and access
- Response time will be slow when the IT person is unavailable
- Incomplete documentation and inconsistent maintenance
- Recovery efforts depend on memory under pressure
Steps to ensure protection:
- Document backup locations, schedules, and restore steps
- Ensure at least two people have access to critical credentials
- Set clear SLAs and escalation paths
- Use managed it for business to turn backup and recovery into an accountable, monitored process
The best DR plans for medium and small businesses are repeatable, documented, and supported rather than dependent on one expert alone.
Small businesses don’t need enterprise complexity to achieve successful backups and disaster recovery plans, but clarity is necessary.
Businesses must clarify:
Using a simple, tested strategy for backup and DR (automation, offsite/immutable storage, restore testing, and a documented recovery plan), SMBs can reduce the odds that a single incident turns into a business-threatening event.