Published: June 13, 2024Backing up your data is important whether that is for your business, organization, or personal life. In the past people would secure important files, documents, and items in something like a safe to protect them and if needed, copies as well. In this digital age, we store important files and documents as digital data.
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The Importance of Backing Up Your Data
Have you ever lost a picture from an important life event? It isn’t a great feeling. Sometimes losing data is a bummer but not the end of the world. Other times you lose data and it has serious consequences. Backing up your data can help avoid both of those situations. Here are 3 reasons why backing up your data is important.
1. Avoiding Data Loss
There are a lot of things that can happen that can cause you or your organization to lose data. A few common ones are:
- Malware Attacks: Things like ransomware and viruses can corrupt your files or allow cybercriminals to steal your data.
- Hardware Crashes: Sometimes equipment fails and your hard drive is no different. If your drive fails you can lose all of the data that was on it.
- Theft: Not only do criminals steal via software such as malware, they also can steal the physical device to gain access to your data.
- Natural Disasters: Many forms of natural disasters like floods, fire, and serious weather, can damage your devices and cause data loss.
- Accidental Deletion: All of us have accidentally deleted the wrong file. It happens.
2. Business Continuity
For an organization, backing up your data is really important so you can continue to operate. Say the data you lost was a client contact list. That would make it difficult to get in touch with your clients to provide the services they need.
Not only does backing up your data aid in the continuation of your ability to do business, it is also important because you as an organization have a responsibility to protect your customers’ data. Maintaining trust is vitally important to your brand. Your brand image can be damaged because of lost data and could take years to recover.
3. Access and Retrieval.
Not only is backing up your data important for data loss, it is also very helpful for collaboration and accessibility. When you utilize certain data solutions you can access the data remotely so you are not tied to the specific device the data was stored on.
You also can use remote storage solutions to collaborate with other people on files. This can aid in the ability to work remotely or connect with clients.
Backing up your data in practice
There are a few different methods that you can use for backing up your data on a personal level or organizational level. Here are 3 solutions to consider for backing up your data.
1. Cloud Storage.
Today, there are many cloud storage solutions such as Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, etc. Data for the cloud is stored remotely in data centers that you can access from anywhere via the internet. Many of these services have a level of free use as well as paid options for additional storage space and features.
Since cloud storage is stored remotely at different data centers it has enhanced security that is often not available on a smaller scale and also more opportunities for backups to the backups to add additional redundancy.
2. External Drives.
Having some sort of external drive like an external hard drive or USB thumb drive can be a quick and inexpensive solution for data backups when the internet is not always accessible. It also provides the opportunity for you to store the data in a known physical location like a safe.
This data backup option is good for personal use and other small-scale applications.
3. Network-Attached Storage (NAS).
A Network-Attached Storage device is almost like a hybrid between an external drive and cloud storage. Instead of it being attached directly to the device you are working on like your laptop, it is attached to the local network. That means it can be accessed by anyone with access to that network and the appropriate user permissions. So it has greater access from multiple devices on the network yet is not stored in some unknown data center.
This can be a great option for personal use by a family on their home network or for smaller businesses.
Start Backing up your data today
Backing up your data is not something that is optional these days. With so much of our work and life relying on digital data it is important that we back up our data regularly to prevent data loss with potentially catastrophic consequences.
So back up your data, do it regularly, and keep it secure.
And as always, we are here to help.
