With the world’s growing dependence on the internet, there is a lot of information tucked away through online sources as well locally offline. On a daily basis, people use their computers to transmit files and other data to remote coworkers or to sharing sites where more than one person can access the information at the same time. So it becomes a big concern when companies are faced with protecting their data from being corrupted, hacked, or irreplaceably lost. The latter being by far the worst catastrophe.
Years ago, you were preached at to save everything to more than one disk as a means of having a backup. When hard drives were developed, you were taught to save your data to the hard drive and also make a copy on a disk. As technology progressed, people stored their data on disks, tapes, removable hard drives, ZIP drives, and now flash drives and CD’s. But the problem with these types of media is that they can get lost or damaged by fire, water, and breakage. Not only can the data be lost that way, but the equipment used to retrieve the data has become obsolete. If computer systems have been replaced before the data was placed on newer media, it is essentially lost since there is no way to access it for use.
It’s important to have more than one backup source. There are many online backup companies now that guarantee the safety and integrity of your data. In addition to having at least one physical backup of your data, it is an option worth investigating to have your data backed up to an online service where you can access it from more than one location.
Keep one physical backup where the computer system is, another at a remote location, and have an online backup. Be sure to update all three regularly. After spending all of your time, energy and money on your data collection, it’s important to be able to keep it intact.
Let us know what you use to back up your data, and share your tips on keeping our hard work safe from harm.
