New Year is a time where many of us set ourselves new goals and challenges. It might be to clear out the garage or loft. Maybe to shop around for a cheaper energy deal. Or to finally join the gym and drop a few pounds. We set these goals to try and improve our productivity, health or the business we work in.
Anything that inspires us to improve in the coming year is a positive. The problem is the motivation starts to waive and has often disappeared by the time February arrives. Your chances of achievement increase if you set only a few, realistic goals. If you’re going to set just one goal for this year make sure it’s to finally set-in place a good backup for your digital files.
We talk a lot about robust backup in the workplace. But don’t forget your personal devices too. This is especially important this year as lines between home and work have blurred. The fact is that all storage devices will eventually fail. As well as failure, you also have the dangers of loss, theft, accident and even natural disaster. Many of us put these possibilities out of our minds. We plan to organise our files and set up a backup ‘one day’. But that day never comes. Creating a backup is always something to do tomorrow. It is very easy to think it’ll never happen to me.
Replacing Your Valuables
The majority of things can be replaced. A tablet, laptop, or mobile could be replaced with a new one. Even if your bank card gets stolen or lost it can be cancelled and replaced by the bank. Usually within a few days.
Losing data is different. If you’ve not got around to setting up that backup there is no way to recover it. Backups provide the worlds best insurance policy.
An insurance policy gives you back most, though generally not all, of the value of goods you’ve lost. But you still need to find those items and go and purchase them. Data backup gives you back exactly what you’ve lost. Dependant on how much data you have this can happen almost instantly. And there is no excess to pay!
Recovering Irreplaceable Data
There will be plenty of old documents, notes, and files on your PC that you can happily do without. But there will also be important documents, files and photographs that you would not want to be without.
These files can include photographs of loved ones, or of past holidays and special events. The files can be as precious as the memories. We take the integrity of our data for granted. If a file is there today, we’ll be able to access it tomorrow. Unfortunately, this is not always true.
Those files are irreplaceable. They are far too important to keep in one place and hope they are safe. If you’ve only got one copy of a file, you’re leaving it down to luck as to how long it survives.
Data is Lost in an Instant
Unfortunately, data storage can develop a fault or failure at any time. Some can last for years others will fail within months. Failures often happy without warning. Even if the device is new and under warranty, the warranty only covers a replacement device NOT replacement of your lost data. Generally though the hardware is more likely to fail as it ages.
Of course, it’s not just failure. As modern devices get smaller and more portable the chances of loss and theft increase. The criminals are not interested in what’s on the device; they’ll simple erase your precious files and sell on the device. Important files are painful to lose, regardless of how this happens.
If you lost your important files today how much would you pay to get them back intact? A good backup will cost only a fraction of that amount.
Backup For You
With the right backup solution in place a lost or stolen device is just an annoyance, not a disaster. The data can be kept safe, and available to you again when you have a new device to restore it to.
Regular consistent backups can be setup to work automatically, in the background. You won’t even notice they are happening until you need them. Everything you create can be backed up and kept safe from the moment they are captured or saved.
For business backups speak to your technology partner.
At home Windows 10 includes backup options, OneDrive is a decent basic solution. But it may be better to use a 3rd party application. There are some great free options and various paid options with both outright purchase and subscription models available
