Are You Keeping Your Digital Data Safe?
Data Backups????? What Are Those?
Have you ever lost your computer files? I can tell you from experience that it is a gut sickening experience. All it takes is a sudden hard drive failure to lose everything, even with a new computer. I had a top of the line HP business desktop that suffered a hard drive failure only 1 month after purchase. Luckily I had already learned to create backups.
"I'll do it tomorrow"
A great majority of us tend to procrastinate this backup process. It is not an issue of "IF my computer hard drive crashes", but "WHEN it crashes". Storage devices wear out or quickly go "bad". They should probably be replaced fairly often, or at least every few years.
- Could you recover a deleted or corrupted computer file from a backup?
- Have you developed a backup plan to keep your files backed up automatically?
- Have you checked to see that the backup service is actually backing up? (the operating system backup services can become dysfunctional at times.)
- What if your computer and backups are stolen, or destroyed in a fire or flood? All of your files are gone!
- Do you have an offsite backup? It's important to have all of your files being backed to a site outside of your home in case your computer files and file backups are stolen or destroyed.
- Do you have a family member that is responsible to be the "backup person" in your family? Does this person have access to computer passwords, backup passwords, and such in case you become deceased.
- How are you going to make sure that your precious photos and family documents continue to be maintained after you are gone?
