What retention period do you actually need?

Retention should be driven by how long it could realistically take to notice a problem, not by storage cost alone — many businesses only discover an issue such as accidental deletion or undetected fraud weeks or months later. A sensible starting point is a mix of daily backups for 30 days, weekly for a few months, and monthly for a year or more.

Coach's tip: check your industry's specific record-keeping rules too — some sectors need much longer retention for compliance reasons.