Estimate how long it would take to recover your data and systems after a disaster, and understand the business impact of downtime.
| Disaster Type | Local NAS | Cloud Only | Hybrid (Local + Cloud) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single File Recovery | 1–5 min | 5–15 min | 1–5 min |
| Server Failure (100GB) | 1–2 hrs | 3–8 hrs | 1–3 hrs |
| Ransomware (100GB) | 2–6 hrs | 6–16 hrs | 3–8 hrs |
| Full Site Disaster (500GB) | N/A (destroyed) | 12–48 hrs | 8–24 hrs |
| Database Corruption | 30–60 min | 1–4 hrs | 30–90 min |
| Email / M365 Recovery | N/A | 15–60 min | 15–60 min |
Times assume typical 100 Mbps connection for cloud restores and 1 Gbps LAN for local restores. Actual times vary by data volume, infrastructure complexity, and connection speed. Cloudswitched managed backup includes SLA-backed recovery times. View our backup solutions
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Recovery time depends heavily on data volume and network throughput — restoring 1TB over a typical business broadband connection can take many hours, while local backup appliances or cloud providers with fast restore options can cut this to under an hour for critical systems. This calculator estimates recovery windows for your specific setup.
RTO (Recovery Time Objective) is how long you can tolerate being down before systems are restored. RPO (Recovery Point Objective) is how much data loss is acceptable, measured in time since the last backup. Most UK SMEs target an RTO of a few hours and an RPO of 24 hours or less for critical systems.
Restore speed is usually limited by your internet upload/download bandwidth rather than the cloud provider itself — pulling large volumes of data back down a standard business connection can take far longer than the original backup. Local caching or hybrid backup appliances typically speed up recovery significantly.
Most cyber insurance and compliance frameworks now expect at least an annual disaster recovery test, though quarterly testing of critical systems is considered best practice for UK SMEs. Untested backups are a common cause of failed recoveries — the backup existing is not the same as it being restorable.
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