Cost of backups, snapshots and disaster recovery on cloud and VPS: illustrative sums for Indian MSMEs

Backups are cheap compared with losing data, but they are rarely free and they grow every month unless you set retention rules. On cloud you pay for snapshot storage, backup storage, copies to another region (storage plus transfer) and archive retrieval; on VPS and shared hosting, backups are often an add-on. Disaster recovery (DR) costs more again, rising from a few thousand rupees a month for "restore from backup" to roughly the cost of a second production setup for a hot standby. In the illustrative example below, a 500 GB business server needs about ₹7,300 a month for a sensible backup set, before GST. This guide belongs to the best-fit method.

Two numbers that decide the budget

RPO (recovery point objective): how much data you can afford to lose, for example one day or one hour.
RTO (recovery time objective): how long you can afford to be down, for example one day or 30 minutes.

Shorter RPO and RTO cost more. Agree them with the business owner before designing backups.

Business need (example)	RPO	RTO	Typical approach
Brochure website	1 day	1 day	Daily backup, restore when needed
Accounting server	1 day	4 hours	Daily backup + snapshot, tested restore
Online store	1 hour	1 hour	Frequent database backups, standby in another zone
Payment-critical system	Minutes	Minutes	Replication to another region, warm or hot standby

What each backup component costs (how it is billed)

Component	Billing basis	Note
Disk snapshots	Per GB stored, usually incremental	Many snapshots of a busy disk add up
Backup service	Per protected resource and/or per GB	Some include scheduling and retention
Object storage copy	Per GB-month plus requests	Cheaper than snapshots for long retention
Archive tier	Lowest per GB, retrieval fee, minimum duration	For monthly or yearly backups
Copy to another region	Storage there + inter-region transfer	Needed for regional DR
Log storage	Per GB ingested and stored	CERT-In: 180 days within India
VPS backup add-on	Flat fee or % of plan	Check frequency, retention and restore process

Illustrative monthly backup budget for a 500 GB server

Item	Calculation (illustrative rates)	₹ a month
Daily snapshots, 14-day retention	500 GB base + 14 × 10 GB changes = 640 GB × ₹4	2,560
Weekly backup to object storage in a second Indian region	500 GB × ₹2	1,000
Transfer of changes to the second region	300 GB × ₹2	600
Monthly archive backups kept 12 months	12 × 500 GB = 6,000 GB × ₹0.40	2,400
Logs for 180 days	2 GB a day × 180 = 360 GB × ₹2	720
Total		7,280

With 18% GST, ₹8,590.40. The archive line builds up over the first year (one month's backup in month one, twelve by month twelve). If the server costs ₹10,000 a month, a complete backup set adds about 73% to the bill, which is why retention rules matter.

Cheaper variations

Keep 7 daily snapshots instead of 14: saves about 70 GB × ₹4 = ₹280.
Compress and deduplicate backups: object and archive lines may fall sharply.
Keep 6 monthly archives instead of 12: saves ₹1,200 once fully built.
Store logs compressed in object storage rather than a search tool.

Disaster recovery options and relative cost

DR pattern	What runs in the second location	Relative monthly cost (illustrative)	Typical RTO
Backup and restore	Backups only	Lowest (the backup budget above)	Hours to a day
Pilot light	Database replica, servers off	Backups + a small replica	About an hour or more
Warm standby	Scaled-down copy of everything running	30–60% of production	Minutes to an hour
Hot standby / multi-site	Full copy, active	About 100% of production or more	Near zero

India has more than one region for several major clouds (for example Mumbai and Hyderabad), so a DR copy can stay within India. See Indian regions and data rules. Remember inter-region transfer costs; see egress charges.

Testing is part of the cost

A backup that has never been restored is a hope, not a plan. Budget time for:

A monthly restore test of one file and one database.
A quarterly full server restore to a test environment (pay for a few hours of a test VM).
A yearly DR drill for critical systems, with timings written down.

Illustrative. A quarterly test VM for 6 hours at ₹15 an hour plus 3 hours of an engineer at ₹1,500 = ₹90 + ₹4,500 = ₹4,590 a quarter. Cheap compared with discovering backups are broken during an incident.

Ransomware considerations

Keep at least one copy that cannot be deleted or changed for a set period (immutable or object-lock storage, or an offline copy).
Use separate credentials for the backup account.
Ensure incident reporting: CERT-In's directions require specified incidents to be reported within six hours of noticing them.

Backups are often the largest line in the Windows accounting server example, and a managed partner may run them for you; see managed vs self-managed.

FAQ

Are snapshots the same as backups?

Not quite. Snapshots usually sit with the same provider and region and may be lost with the account. Keep at least one copy elsewhere.

Does my shared host back up my site?

Many do, but frequency, retention and restore fees vary. Keep your own copy too.

Do I need 180 days of logs for every server?

The CERT-In directions refer to logs of all ICT systems. Keep the relevant system and access logs and ask a professional for your case.

What RPO should a small business choose?

Start with what you would lose: a day of orders, invoices or emails. If losing a day is unacceptable, back up more often.

Sources

CERT-In — 180-day logs and 6-hour incident reporting
AWS Regions — Mumbai and Hyderabad regions (checked 28 October 2026)
MeitY — DPDP security safeguards for personal data
CBIC GST — GST on backup and storage services