Backup Restore Delays

Suppose, a lightning strike shoots a power surge to your computer and damages your data drive.

You want to get back to work as soon as possible.

But, first you have to buy a new data drive, restore a known good backup to the new drive, install the drive into your computer, and boot up the computer.

How long could that process take?

Hours? One to two days to three days?

You'd have to:

• Run out to your local computer store and buy a new drive;
  
  
• Find another computer to use for the restore;
  
  
• Log in to your backup service's site;
  
  
• Figure out how to do a restore;
  
  
• Start the restore;
  
  
• Wait several hours for the backup file(s) to download to the new data drive.
  
  The wait time varies depending on your local Internet connection.
  
  
• Figure out how to change boot settings to boot from the external drive;
  
  
• Or, open your computer and install the new drive;
  
  
• Finally, cross your fingers, and boot from the new data drive.

After several hours or days you can finally resume working on your client projects.

You may miss client deadlines, or you may not be able to provide services to customers while trying to restore your backup.

And, you're probably exhausted, or at least, I'd be exhausted worrying whether I could work through all those steps and successfully boot my restored system and resume working.

That's not the experience I want if my data drive fails.

Spin Up a Virtual Machine

Here's the better way.

Datto's backup services provide the ability to spin up a Virtual Machine (VM) directly from the backup.

Literally, in less than five to ten minutes, I can spin up a Virtual Machine (VM) and resume working on my client projects or helping my customers.

I don't have to sweat it worrying whether I can successfully download and restore a backup onto a new data drive.

And, I don't have to worry whether the restored system will boot.

Check out our Cyberthreat protection plans.