Why would a company choose to use a cold site for disaster recovery?

A company may choose to use a cold site for disaster recovery primarily due to the cost considerations involved. Cold sites are essentially standby facilities that provide the necessary infrastructure, such as power, cooling, and networking capabilities, but do not include live data or equipment that is actively running. This means that they involve much lower operational costs compared to hot sites, which are fully equipped and operational facilities that mirror the primary site and allow for immediate failover.

Investing in a hot site comes with significant expenses because it requires continuous backups of data and fully functional hardware that can be activated instantly in the event of a disaster. Cold sites, while requiring more time to get operational and not providing immediate failover capabilities, make them a financially prudent choice for companies looking to minimize infrastructure costs. Therefore, the higher costs associated with hot sites can drive organizations to favor cold sites when formulating their disaster recovery strategies.