Backing up data is an essential part of any company’s IT strategy, how to protect your data from natural disasters, viruses or simply from human negligence is something that has to be considered wisely. Loss of company data can be catastrophic for many companies.
For personal computer users, loss of data can be just as upsetting if not more, as years of family memories can be erased in a millisecond. So whether your computer is for business or personal use, my advice is not to let today pass without deciding on a backup strategy.
Backup Strategy
There are many options and most larger organizations will have servers in place to share data and tape backup systems to regularly backup the data on and offsite. For smaller businesses or home users the usual backup strategy consists of an external hard drive which is connected to a computer to copy over the data. Using an external hard drive is a good simple strategy as it can be plugged into any computer through a USB cable and transferring the information is as easy as copy and paste (if you don’t know how to copy and paste please email me !)
The disadvantages when it comes to using an external hard drive for your backup strategy is the following
1. Usually people depend on their own memory to backup the data and because of this backup can be sporadic and inconsistent.
2. The external hard drive is often kept plugged into the computer or laptop and therefore is susceptible to the same conditions as the computer in the event of any natural disasters.
If you want to continue to use this solution I would advise investing in some backup software such as Backup and restore or which will allow you to automate the backups. It may also be a good idea to take the hard drive offsite after a backup to keep the Hard drive safe and secure.
Alternative Solution
The alternative solution to backup is becoming the most popular, cheapest, and logical solution to use is online backup or Cloud Back up solutions. You can rent space in the cloud to backup all your data, this overcomes any risk of natural disaster and allows you to share data seamlessly between computers.
For business use Cloud data storage is a great benefit to productivity allowing you to access your data from any computer on or offsite. It is also available as a phone app meaning access is available from any device at any time.
For personal use your precious memories can be stored safely and shared with family and friends anywhere at anytime.
At present Dropbox are offering a Free 2GB dropbox for Free, so get with the time and go get yourself some free space on the Cloud 🙂
Have a great weekend
