Archives : 2011 : December
Online Retailer Grows with Removable Data Storage
BackupWorks.com Does Big Business with Small Business
Reprint of Imation Case Study,
In Orange County, California, BackupWorks.com runs an efficient e-commerce operation. They are an online seller of data storage solutions specializing in backup products, serving small and medium-sized businesses, as well as government, military and educational institutions.
Recognizing that many of their customers do not have dedicated IT staff, BackupWorks.com works with them directly to find the right storage solutions and also ensures that they are implemented correctly the first time.
With more than a decade in business, an established customer base, and select product lines in NAS, SAN, Tape and disk, BackupWorks.com is now becoming an important seller and supporter of the RDX® storage system technology. Evan Sackstein, Vice President of Sales for BackupWorks.com, is enthusiastic about the growing acceptance of the removable hard disk format.
“When we started the company 12 years ago, we were primarily a tape company,” he said. We didn’t really do any kind of disk-based backup, and our first few times entering that market were challenging. But when people started asking us about RDX media for drives from several manufacturers, we took a closer look.”
What started out as an experiment quickly became an important part of the business. “It just took off,” Sackstein said. “We got to the point where a lot of people were contacting us using old 4mm tapes, 8mm tapes, and they were looking to get away from tape. They had bad experiences with tapes. They didn’t feel it was reliable, and they wanted something different—and RDX was just the perfect fit.”
For many of these customers, reliability, ease of use, and cost were the main deciding factors. Sackstein estimates that customers who don’t already have backup hardware can save as much as 75 percent by choosing RDX instead of tape. “When I speak to clients about LTO tape drives,” he said, “they’re looking at a minimum of $1500, plus media, plus cleaning tapes, plus backup software, plus connectivity such as SCSI or SAS—that’s at least a $2000 investment. Then I show them how they can get complete RDX solution for under $500.”
RDX: RUGGED, EXPANDABLE STORAGE FOR SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED BUSINESSES
According to Sackstein, RDX is ideal for home offices and small businesses with up to 10 or 15 employees. These customers often lack the resources to hire full-time information technology staff, and need to handle technology problems on their own. “It’s a very easy system to use, Sackstein said. “Anybody who has used a USB hard drive to drag and drop files will be able to use a USB RDX drive.”
That familiarity is a large part of the appeal. Sackstein said that tape drives are uncommon in people’s daily home and work lives, so they are often perceived as too complicated or challenging. “People get scared of that,” Sackstein said. “Especially small business people. Not IT guys, but small business, medium business. They’re a little bit skeptical of tape.”
MULTIPLE SALES CHANNELS, PRIVATE AND PUBLIC — AND ALL GROWING
One of the most important sales channels for BackupWorks.com is independent IT consultants, who provide advice and support for other companies. Equipped with demonstration models of RDX docking stations and cartridges, these consultants make test installations at customer sites. “As soon as they see the success,” Sackstein said, “they end up buying it for all their clients.”
In addition to small and medium sized businesses, BackupWorks.com is receiving more orders for RDX products from the public sector. Government agencies with specific requirements sometimes manage their own backups locally. These already include one of the National Laboratories and a regional Veterans’ Affairs office. They value the same benefits as business customers, and represent another growing market segment. And, as Sackstein says, “If the whole removable disk storage industry is based on RDX technology, it’s got to be good. That’s what we sell it on — what customers are looking for. It’s really easy to sell.”
Since this interview was conducted, RDX® hard disk-based storage libraries have been introduced and Sackstein and his team are excited because it allows their customers to operate in either JBOD or tape emulation mode. With the A8’s introduction to the RDX family, BackupWorks can now provide greater capacity solutions for small and medium sized businesses. In fact, they are currently conducting case studies with many satisfied customers.
