SaaS data protection
Google Workspace backup for South African businesses and MSPs
Automated cloud-to-cloud backup for Gmail, Drive, Contacts and Calendar — with granular recovery and local data residency.
The responsibility gap
Google keeps the platform running. Protecting your data is still your responsibility.
Google Workspace is reliable, but reliability is not the same as backup. Accidental deletion, a departing employee, a compromised account or a malicious insider can all remove data permanently once native retention windows lapse. An independent backup gives you point-in-time copies you control — and can restore from — regardless of what happens inside the live environment.
Gmail
Back up mailboxes including messages, attachments, labels and folder structure — with recovery down to a single email.
Drive and Shared Drives
Protect user My Drive and team Shared Drives, preserving files, folder hierarchy and sharing permissions.
Contacts
Capture personal and directory contacts so relationships and details survive accidental deletion or account changes.
Calendar
Back up calendars and events, protecting scheduling data that operations depend on day to day.
How it protects you
Automated backup, granular recovery, local residency
Granular recovery
Restore an individual email, file or entire account without over-writing everything — recover exactly what was lost.
Automated protection
Scheduled daily backups run without manual intervention, so protection does not depend on someone remembering to run it.
Local data residency
Backups are held on Soteria Cloud infrastructure hosted in Teraco data centres in Johannesburg and Cape Town.
Retention is not backup
Know the difference before you need to recover
Native retention is designed for compliance and legal hold — it keeps data for a policy window. Operational backup is designed for recovery — it lets you restore a clean, point-in-time copy of exactly what was lost, whenever you need it. Relying on retention alone leaves a gap the day something is deleted beyond its window.
Discuss Google Workspace backupCommon data-loss scenarios
- A user permanently deletes emails or files beyond the trash window
- A departing employee’s account is removed with data still needed
- A compromised account is used to destroy or exfiltrate data
- Sync errors or third-party apps corrupt Drive content
- A Shared Drive is deleted, taking team files with it
Frequently asked questions
Does Google not already back up my Workspace data?
Google provides highly available, resilient infrastructure, but it operates a shared-responsibility model: Google protects the platform, while you remain responsible for your data. Native features like the trash and admin retention are limited-window recovery tools, not a full backup. If data is deleted beyond the retention window — accidentally, maliciously or through a compromised account — it can be lost permanently.
What is the difference between retention and backup?
Retention keeps data for a defined period and is designed for compliance and legal hold, not operational recovery. Backup keeps independent, point-in-time copies you can restore from at any time. Retention answers "can we keep this?"; backup answers "can we get this back?".
Can I restore just one email or file?
Yes. Granular recovery lets you restore a single message, document, contact or calendar item, or an entire account, without a disruptive full-account overwrite.
Where is the backup data stored?
Through Soteria Cloud, Google Workspace backups are stored on infrastructure hosted in Teraco data centres in Johannesburg and Cape Town, keeping a copy of your data within South African borders.
How does this work for MSPs managing multiple tenants?
Google Workspace backup is managed through the same Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud console used for Microsoft 365, endpoints and servers — so an MSP can protect multiple customer tenants and workloads from one multi-tenant platform.
Close the Google Workspace backup gap
Talk to Soteria Cloud about protecting Google Workspace with local, independent backup.