Note: Starting on October 13, 2020, Google Drive will automatically start deleting files after they have spent 30 consecutive days in the trash.
IN NO EVENT WILL GOOGLE OR ITS LICENSORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, AND INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DAMAGES FOR INTERRUPTION OF USE OR FOR LOSS OR INACCURACY OR CORRUPTION OF DATA, LOST PROFITS, OR COSTS OF PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES, HOWEVER CAUSED (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO USE, MISUSE, INABILITY TO USE, OR INTERRUPTED USE) AND UNDER ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO CONTRACT OR TORT AND WHETHER OR NOT GOOGLE WAS OR SHOULD HAVE BEEN AWARE OR ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE REGARDLESS OF WHETHER ANY REMEDY SET FORTH IN THIS AGREEMENT FAILS OF ITS ESSENTIAL PURPOSE
Accidental deletions: An employee in your organisation might accidentally delete important data while trying to free up storage space or end up removing the original version of a file while trying to get rid of duplicates. According to a survey conducted by Shred-it, 47% of data breach incidents in the US are caused due to employee negligence (CNBC).
Data Corruption from Internal Threats: According to the Information Security Forum, the new working arrangements (as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic) may cause employees to become disgruntled or resentful due to lowered remuneration, reduced promotional opportunities and uncertainties about the future. These circumstances result in higher occurrences of fraud, information leakage, and theft of intellectual property.
Ransomware Attacks: Bitdefender’s Mid-Year Threat Landscape Report 2020 announced a seven-fold spike in the number of ransomware attacks in 2020 when compared to 2019.The Google Backup & Sync feature syncs the cloud data across devices. If an on-premise device that is in sync with your Google Drive is corrupted by a ransomware, it will corrupt the online Google application too.
Unexpected Outages: According to New York Post, Google suffered a major outage in August 2020, which affected over a dozen Google Workspace services. Both personal as well as business users of Google Workspace across the world were affected by this.
Malicious Third Party Apps: If an end user installs an unverified third party app using their Google account, the app can trick the user into granting access to their account data and overwrite existing data.
Phishing Attacks: A phishing attack revolves around scammers tricking users into giving up data or access to systems in the mistaken belief that they are dealing with someone they know or trust. Cybercriminals often use high-profile events as a lure, for example, 2020 has seen a rise in COVID-themed phishing attacks. Cybercriminals have also attempted to use the 2020 US Presidential election as a means of attack. Click here to find out how to protect your business from phishing attacks.
Google Vault is an archiving tool that retains user data stored in G Suite regardless of end-user actions, including permanent deletions.
Note: Google Vault is only available to those subscribed to G Suite Business or Enterprise plan.
To know more about the differences between Backup and Archive solutions, read this article.
Step 1: Log in to your G Suite account using the Admin credentials. Click here to log in to Google Vault. Once logged in, you will be taken to the homepage of Google Vault.
Step 2: Navigate to the “Retention” module on the left pane and click on the “Drive” option to edit its retention policy.
Step 3: Tick the box, “Set a default retention rule for Drive.” Select the radio button “Indefinitely” as the duration of retention and click “Save”.
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Easy backup: Users can take customized backup to effortlessly backup whatever that’s necessary.
Instant backup: Take a backup in no time, even for large teams.
Automatic backup: Take regular backups at a set frequency, so that you don’t miss out any important files.
Incremental backup: Avoid duplication of data by taking a backup of only the changes made to a document since the last backup.
Better storage space management: Set retention periods and extensions to avoid backing up unnecessary files.
Regular activity reports: Get granular reports of all the activities in the backup account.
Cloud applications like SysCloud are reliable options to back up and restore your Google Drive effortlessly. SysCloud uses Amazon Web Services (AWS) to provide a fully automated cloud to cloud backup and restore.
Pros:
Effortless cloud backup: Automated backup for new users in the domain, back up multiple domains in the same account, run automated backup upto 3 times a day, initiate on-demand backup instantly
Easy recovery: Restore with folder-structure and sharing permissions intact, cross-user restore, export emails in .pst or MBox formats
Proactive security: Ransomware detection for data being backed up, secure cloud backup on AWS with 99.99% uptime guarantee, 256 bit AES encryption to guarantee data privacy and confidentiality, FERPA, HIPAA, and PCI compliant
Comprehensive admin controls: Real-time dashboard with insights into backup and restore health status, ransomware threats, and activity logs; configure backup settings at domain-level, user-level, and organizational unit level; end-user self service; automatically exclude suspended and deleted user from billing
Learn more about SysCloud Google Drive backup.
Step 1: Login to SysCloud application using your G Suite credentials. Navigate to the Backup module on the menu bar and select “Start Backup” option in the drop-down menu.
Step 2: Choose if you want to back up the entire domain or specific users and teams.
Step 3: Click on “Add Users & Teams.”
Step 4: Select the users whose data you want to backup and click “CONFIRM.”
Step 5: In the Apps section, select “Drive” and click “Start Backup.” This will start the backup process. You can view the backup progress in the “Archives & Restore” page.
Here are four ways in which individual users can back up their Google Drive data.
Step 1: Login to your G Suite account and open Drive.
Step 2: Hold Ctrl+A to select all the files, or select the ones you want to backup.
Step 3: Right click and select the “Download” option.
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Step 1: Open the Google Drive account from which you want to copy files. Select all the files you want to back up. Right click and select the “Share” option.
Step 2: Add the second Google account to which you want to back up the files. Click the “Send” button.
Step 3: Select the same files once again and click the “Share” option. Now, click on the drop-down arrow next to your second Google account and select “Make owner.” A pop-up box will appear asking for permission. Click “Yes.”
Step 4: Open the second Google Drive account and go to Gmail. You will find a new email with all the shared files attached. Click on the “Add all to Drive” option. You can view the newly added files in your second Google Drive account.
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Step 1: Download the Backup and Sync application. Click here to download the app.
Step 2: Launch the application and sign in using your Google account.
Note: Since we are using the Backup and Sync app as a tool to easily download the Drive files, skip this section.
Step 3: Uncheck all the options in the “My Computer” page to prevent your desktop files from being uploaded to Google Drive, and click “NEXT”.
Step 4: Select the option “Sync My Drive to this computer. Give the local folder to which you want to download your Drive files. Select the radio button “Sync everything in My Drive” if you want to sync the entire Drive or the option “Sync only these folders” if you want to back up only the selected folders.
Step 5: Click on the “START” button.
Step 6: Copy all the files that were downloaded and save in another folder or another device.
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What is Google Takeout? Click here to read more about Google Takeout.
Step 1: Log in to Google Takeout using your Google credentials.
Step 2: Choose Drive from the list of all Google products, and click “Next step.”
Step 3: Choose the file type you would like the data to be sent as, the frequency you would like this action to happen (for example, if you would like your Google Drive data to be exported every two months), and the destination you would like your data to be sent to.
Note:
Step 4: Click on “Create export.” You can see the export in progress.
Note: The time taken will depend on the amount of data stored in the Drive.
Step 5: Click the “Download your files” button in the email, and you will now have a .zip file or .tgz file (depending on what you chose) on your computer, with all your Google Drive data.
Note: You can also use this method to transfer files to another Google Drive account. For this, extract the data from the .zip or .tgz file. Open the Google Drive account to which you want to upload the data. Click +New-> File/Folder upload. Browse to the location of the downloaded files and upload them to the Drive.
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Note: Google Takeout is known to have technical issues. There has been a recent incident where some videos in Google Photos were mistakenly exported to unrelated users’ archives.
To know the different ways in which you can do this, read our in-depth article “How to Recover Permanently Deleted Files from Google Drive?”
1) Is Google Drive safe for business?
2) Does Google Vault backup Google Drive?
No, Google Vault doesn’t back up Google Drive; however, it can retain Google Drive files of active and suspended users. Click here to know more about the differences between Google Vault and a permanent backup solution.
3) Can I back up my phone to Google Drive?
4) How do I back up Google Drive to a USB Drive?
Select the files you want to transfer. Click the Home tab which is on the upper-left corner of the file explorer window. A toolbar will appear at the top of the window.
Click the Move to option. (You can click the Copy to option if you want to keep a copy of the files on your computer.)
In the drop-down menu that appears, click Choose location. This prompts a pop-up window. Select your USB Drive and click on Move. This will transfer the selected files from your computer to the USB drive.