March 31st is World Backup Day, but it’s important to backup more than one day per year! Here’s why.
Data can be lost in a number of ways including:
- Operating systems crashes
- Data corruption
- Hardware failures
- Lost or stolen devices
- Natural catastrophes including fires, flooding, etc.
- Viruses
- Accidental file deletion
- Failed or incompatible upgrades, patches, or other improvements to your system
- Deliberate sabotage by a disgruntled employee
- April Fools Day pranks gone too far… one more reason to do backups on March 31st
Remember don’t just back your data up, have a backup plan! This means having a comprehensive strategy for dealing with all of the above. Your backup plan should include solutions to all of the following common problems:
- If your entire workplace is destroyed by a catastrophe, do you have an off-site copy of your data to work from?
- Do your backups go back far enough to insure that you will have a good copy of your data, even if a virus or corruption gets saved to your most recent backup?
- Do your backups include all of the system settings required to restore your work to a new device without having to undergo lengthy reconfiguration issues?
- Do you have a place to restore your data and software to?
