--- title: What’s Wrong with Backup? description: "At nScaled, we talk to a lot of businesses about backup. Backup-as-a-service is one of the solutions we provide through our hybrid cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS). Customers have a lot to say about their current backup solutions, and not much of it is positive. We’ve tried to provide a backup solution that solves the problems that they cite. It turns out that the IT teams we talk to are pretty representative of the big picture. Frustration with tapes is well known, but other problems remain, even with disk based backup:" canonical_url: https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/posts/whats-wrong-backup/ locale: en last_updated: 2026-10-27 --- [Acronis Blog](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/) # What’s Wrong with Backup? At nScaled, we talk to a lot of businesses about backup. Backup-as-a-service is one of the solutions we provide through our hybrid cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS). Customers have a lot to say about their current backup solutions, and not much of it is positive. We’ve tried to provide a backup solution that solves the problems that they cite. [![Image 2: Acronis Editorial Team](https://staticfiles.acronis.com/images/content/d85707ae91461544212d39836dc32b42.png)](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/authors/acronis/ "Acronis Editorial Team") [Acronis Editorial Team](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/authors/acronis/) 2 min read Last updated 15 June 2016 At nScaled, we talk to a lot of businesses about backup. Backup-as-a-service is one of the solutions we provide through our hybrid cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS). Customers have a lot to say about their current backup solutions, and not much of it is positive. We’ve tried to provide a backup solution that solves the problems that they cite. It turns out that the IT teams we talk to are pretty representative of the big picture. Frustration with tapes is well known, but other problems remain, even with disk based backup: * the escalating cost of storage as amounts of data grow * backup windows, no matter how short, are unrealistic in a 24×7 business world * Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) of more than fifteen minutes are not acceptable – that’s too much data potentially lost * Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) of more than fifteen minutes are also not acceptable – that’s too long to wait Gartner writes, “Organizations are voicing the opinion that backup needs to improve a lot, not just a little. This is leading to an increased willingness to switch backup vendors. The implication with the rising frustration with backup is that data protection approaches of the past may no longer suffice in meeting current, much less future, recovery requirements.” – Best Practices for Addressing the Broken State of Backup, Gartner, 2010 Gartner goes on to describe how this is affecting the market for backup solutions: “By 2013, at least 20% of organizations will have changed their primary backup vendor due to frustration over cost, complexity and/or capability, up from the typical single-digit percentage shifts today.” Wow, that’s a heck of a lot of turnover taking place! So, what’s the answer? What if backup weren’t a solution any more? What if backup were just a feature of a broader business continuity / disaster recovery (BC/DR) solution? And what if backup happened automatically, with no windows, no downtime, and RPO and RTO of 15 minutes or less? I know, I know – you’re saying, “But DR is complex and expensive! We can’t get the executives to green-light the DR proposal we created, because of the cost.” But what if a DR solution were the same price as backup, yet easier to implement? A real DR solution that not only lets you recover lost data, but also let’s you failover to fully functional servers that end-users can connect to and get back to work? “Sounds too good to be true,” is the comments our sales guys hear the most often. But it is true. The convergence of virtualization, fast and secure WAN and decreasing hardware costs have made cloud backup real, and advanced snapshotting technologies have made backup-as-a-feature-of-DR real too. Check it out. [Cybersecurity](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/tags/cybersecurity/) [Cyber protection](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/tags/cyber-protection/) ## Written by ![Image 3: Acronis Editorial Team](https://staticfiles.acronis.com/images/content/d85707ae91461544212d39836dc32b42.png) Acronis Editorial Team Acronis is a global cyber protection company that provides natively integrated cybersecurity, data protection, and endpoint management for managed service providers (MSPs), small and medium businesses (SMBs), and enterprise IT departments. [Previous post](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/posts/low-risk-adoption-cloud-part-4-selecting-enterprise-grade-cloud-provider/) [Low Risk Adoption of the Cloud, part 4: Selecting an Enterprise Grade Cloud Provider](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/posts/low-risk-adoption-cloud-part-4-selecting-enterprise-grade-cloud-provider/) [Next post](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/posts/why-our-partners-love-cloud/) [Why Our Partners Love the Cloud](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/posts/why-our-partners-love-cloud/) About Acronis Acronis is a leader in AI-native cyber protection, unifying data protection, cybersecurity, IT operations and hybrid infrastructure to deliver business continuity, security and compliance with less cost and complexity. More than 21,000 service providers trust Acronis to protect over 750,000 businesses in 150 countries. Acronis is headquartered in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. [Add as a preferred source on Google](https://google.com/preferences/source?q=acronis.com) ## Related stories Want to learn more? Read the latest stories featuring this solution on our blog. 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A veteran cybersecurity CEO, Panjwani previously served as CEO of WatchGuard Technologies and SafeNet. **October 15, 2026**2 min read ![Image 6: Acronis expands MDR toward broader workspace protection](https://staticfiles.acronis.com/images/blog-card/18e90e89f5ec4ef0901f19008d4ccbf2.png) [Acronis expands MDR toward broader workspace protection](https://www.acronis.com/en/blog/posts/acronis-expands-mdr-toward-broader-workspace-protection/) Acronis is expanding the MDR service with capabilities that make this expertise easier to deliver and help partners address more risks. The developments build on a broader commitment to managed security: helping service providers protect the connected workspace while giving customers access to the expertise needed to investigate threats, respond effectively and maintain business continuity. **October 13, 2026**6 min read