What Is The Best Cloud Storage For Small Business?
Cloud storage for small businesses offers a scalable and more affordable method to store files without relying on local storage.
However, given the many options available, if you’re wondering what the best cloud storage is for a small business, this article will give you detailed insights into the importance of cloud storage and how it can help your small business manage your data securely and privately.
Table of contents
- Backup and data recovery
- File sharing and collaboration
- Remote work
- Security and access control
- Document management
- Compliance and regulatory requirements
Cloud storage for small business use cases
These are how cloud storage for small businesses can help benefit your team and, improve productivity, collaboration, and offer advanced security and privacy.
Backup and data recovery
Backups are crucial for small businesses, especially considering that nearly 70% of small businesses close within a year following a significant data loss incident.
Despite this risk, approximately 30% of businesses still experience data loss due to inadequate backup practices, putting them at significant financial and operational risk.
Cloud storage can solve this problem by automating and scheduling your backups and keeping your business compliant by having copies of your file readily available in case of disaster for quick and easy recovery.
Many cloud providers also provide redundancy across multiple data centers, minimizing the risk of permanent loss by ensuring multiple versions of the duplicated files are accessible.
File sharing and collaboration
Businesses and employees can struggle with security risks, unauthorized access, and inefficient collaboration. Cloud storage solves these problems by offering password-protected files, restricted access, and private file sharing via encrypted links or emails.
Remote work
As of 2024, approximately 40% of the global workforce engages in some form of remote work, meaning cloud storage is the perfect solution for remote workers to work from anywhere with an internet connection on Windows, Mac, Linux, or mobile devices.
Security and access control
Key security and data privacy qualities for cloud storage for small businesses, and any use case for that matter, are end-to-end encryption, Multifactor authentication, and zero-knowledge encryption for additional privacy.
Access controls refer specifically to business cloud storage use cases with features such as audit logs and monitoring, e-document signing, and role-based controls to manage the business account and monitor for unauthorized access.
Document management
Business cloud storage allows flexible storage allocation for teams to securely store, organize, and access files while maintaining compliance and collaboration. By managing and collaborating with other departments, you can ensure your files are organized, secured, and can be shared easily.
For organizations considering what is the best cloud storage for small business when handling large amounts of data, S3 storage is another option. S3 pricing can be a cheaper solution, as you only pay for the storage you use, which can be scaled to meet your future needs.
It offers the same amount of encryption and other security measures, such as backups, but focuses more on businesses that need secure storage without high infrastructure costs.
Compliance and regulatory requirements
To protect sensitive data and risk heavy fines, businesses must meet strict compliance and regulatory requirements, such as GDPR, CCPA, and HIPPA.
In 2023, Meta paid a record-breaking fine of $1.2 billion in 2023 for transferring the personal data of European users to the United States.
Here are key regulations:
- GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation): The GDPR applies to businesses that handle the personal data of EU residents. It regulates data privacy, user consent, and the right to data access or deletion.
2. CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act): Affects businesses collecting data from California residents, granting them rights to access, delete, and opt out of data sharing.
3. HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act): this is one of the most important regulations for healthcare organizations and their partners in the U.S., requiring strict security for medical records and patient information.
As healthcare data breaches increase each year, these industries must be aware of HIPPA-compliant companies.
4. SOC 2 (Service Organization Control 2): Relevant to tech and cloud service providers, ensuring they follow security, availability, and privacy standards.
Different compliance regulations apply to businesses based on their industry, location, and the type of data they handle, so before deciding what is the best cloud storage for small business, ensure they are able to meet these compliance regulations.
Security concerns for businesses
Cloud storage has become a necessary tool as it helps prevent the following security concerns for individuals and businesses, regardless of size.
Data breaches
Every year, IBM releases its "Cost of a Data Breach" report, which, among other things, informs us about the global average costs of data breaches over the years.
Here's a summary of the average costs from 2020 to 2024:
- 2020: $3.86 million
- 2021: $4.24 million
- 2022: $4.35 million
- 2023: $4.45 million
- 2024: $4.88 million
According to these statistics, there’s a 26.4% increase over five years, and it is expected to increase over the next few year. It also highlights which businesses have a higher chance of data breaches, which are:
- Healthcare
- Financial Services
- Pharmaceuticals
Unauthorized access
Unlike large corporations with dedicated security teams, small businesses often have limited resources to detect and prevent intrusions. Hackers will target these businesses and try to access business accounts by hacking passwords, phishing, or exploiting unpatched software vulnerabilities.
Once inside, the cybercriminal can steal data, install malware or ransomware, causing significant financial and reputational loss for the company.
Businesses can prevent unauthorized access or insider threats by implementing a zero-trust policy. This can prevent unauthorized access, as a zero-trust system requires continuous verification of every user and device attempting to access resources, regardless of whether they are inside or outside the network.
Ransomware
Ransomware is a kind of malware that encrypts a small business's data, leaving it inaccessible until a ransom, typically cryptocurrency is paid to the attackers in exchange for the decryption key.
The average ransom payment increased to $2 million in 2024. In addition, businesses spend an average of $2.73 million recovering from a ransomware attack.
Ransomware is malicious software that encrypts data, making it inaccessible until a ransom is paid to the attackers.
Cybercriminals typically infiltrate systems through phishing emails, malicious downloads, or by exploiting unpatched software vulnerabilities. Once inside, the ransomware encrypts critical files, and the attackers demand payment—often in cryptocurrency—in exchange for the decryption key.
For small businesses, ransomware poses a significant threat due to limited resources and cybersecurity measures. In 2024, the average ransom payment increased to $2 million, a 500% rise from the previous year.
Phishing
Phishing attacks typically use emails directed to fake websites to trick employees into revealing passwords, financial details, or personal data.
Historically, phishing emails could be spotted by spelling or grammar mistakes, generic greetings, etc. Still, AI has developed so rapidly that it can create more convincing phishing and AI scams with emails, audio, or even videos to gain access to business data.
In 2024, employees clicked on phishing links nearly three times the previous year's rate, making it clear that phishing is a growing threat.
What is the best cloud storage for a small business?
Internxt Drive
Internxt Drive for Business is a GDPR-compliant cloud service that offers end-to-end, zero-knowledge encryption for companies to privately store, manage, sync, and back up their files.
With Internxt, you control your encryption keys, which are stored on your device. This means nobody except you and your team can access your files. Other cloud providers, like Google or Microsoft, store and manage encryption keys on their own servers, which allows them to access your files or provide access to external law enforcement or the government.
Internxt emphasizes total privacy in its cloud storage to protect your data from unauthorized access and data breaches, thanks to Internxt’s state-of-the-art encryption.
Other features you get with Internxt Business plans are:
- Organization management: You can switch from your personal to a business account, where you can manage account billing and payments, add users, and allocate storage to your team members.
- Secure file sharing: Prevent unauthorized access to files with password protection and restricted access to shared folders.
- Session management: Get real-time login notifications and detailed remote session monitoring (client, OS, IP, location, last active time) to monitor accounts and prevent unauthorized access.
- Access logs: Track who has signed in, uploaded, or modified files for complete data security in your team.
Internxt Business pricing
Internxt plans offer 1TB storage for up to 10 users on the standard plan or 2TB for up to 100 users with the pro plan at these prices:
Standard
- €24/user/year
- 1TB per user
- Zero-knowledge encryption
- Create and manage users & teams
- Starting at 3 users and up to 10
- Guaranteed GDPR compliance
- Two-factor authentication (2FA)
- Manage account billing & payments
- Premium customer support
Pro
- €30/user/year
- 2TB per user
- Zero-knowledge encryption
- Create and manage users & teams
- Starting at 3 users and up to 10
- Guaranteed GDPR compliance
- Two-factor authentication (2FA)
- Manage account billing & payments
- Premium customer support
Visit the Internxt website to contact our sales team for more information how we can help you get the best cloud storage for your small business.
Internxt S3
If you’re considering what is the best cloud storage for small business, and need to manage, access, and store large-scale data, then Internxt offers the same security and peace of mind with Internxt S3 object storage.
Internxt cloud storage pricing offers this cloud storage for small businesses for €7/TB/month, meaning you can add as much storage as you need at a fixed rate, with no additional or hidden charges for API requests or data transfer.
Features of Internxt S3 object storage include:
- 100% Hot: immediate access to your data, making it readily available when needed, which is ideal for active data storage.
- Ultra-fast and instantly accessible: high performance for real-time applications and reduced latency.
- Up to 80% cheaper than AWS: Significant cost savings compared to traditional cloud storage solutions, allowing businesses to optimize their storage expenses.
- Zero fees: Internet doesn’t have hidden charges or extra costs, which makes budgeting and financial planning simpler and more predictable.
- Immutable backups: Ensures data integrity by preventing unauthorized changes providing secure, long-term storage for backups and critical files.
If you’re interested in how Internxt object storage can help your small team, you can contact our sales team through our website to schedule a call.
What is the best cloud storage for small business? Internxt Drive or S3?
So, the million-dollar question is, what is the best cloud storage for small business, Drive or S3?
Internxt Drive is ideal for small businesses focused on privacy and security. It offers end-to-end encryption and GDPR compliance to protect against data breaches, ransomware, and malware.
While highly scalable and compatible with various applications, S3 can become costly when data transfer or storage is high. Internxt S3 may, therefore, be a better option for medium-sized businesses that need extensive integration with AWS services or large-scale cloud infrastructure.
Whichever option you choose, you will get guaranteed protection for your files and an affordable, scalable, and private storage solution to meet your business cloud storage needs.