In this month’s blog post, we will be discussing the importance of backing up your crucial data on your server and computers. This post will contain key information about the importance of backing up data, how to back up data and the incredible benefits of having a remote back up service.

What is a backup?

A backup is an identical copy of your data (Photos, Videos, Important Documents, System files, etc) to an external hard drive. It is important to backup your data regularly. Companies should be backing up crucial data at least once a day; where as personal devices can be backed up once a week (depending on how important the data is to that person).

How to backup data?

There are a variety of ways to backup data and this depends on the user and what type of data is being backed up. Data can be copied over to an external hard drive manually or using automatic software such as Windows back up and restore.  By using automatic tools you can set scheduled times that suit you or your organisation, an example of this is 21:00 as most companies have stopped accessing data therefore no updated files will be missed.

Why are backups important?

Backups are extremely important because they protect you or your organisation from:

• Hardware Failure

Users are relying on computers more, making it more important than ever to ensure precious data is always backed up. This means we may forget or may not make time to back up regularly. Even though technology has advanced hard drives will fail with no warning meaning your data may be corrupted and very expensive to retrieve when not backed up.

• Viruses

Everybody has heard of a computer virus. If your device becomes infected your data may be corrupted and unrecoverable. By taking regular backups of your data in this scenario it will be a breeze to restore and carry on working.

• Theft

In the unfortunate situation of having your computer device stolen you will always have a copy of your data that can be restored on to your new device.

• Accidental Deletion

As many companies have lots of users accessing the same data it is easy for a user to accidentally delete an important file. Taking regular backups of your data means that you can then restore it and undo the human error.

• Fires, Floods and other natural disasters

A Disaster is something that cannot be avoided which can causes damage to the devices we use. Backing up your data will help your organisation recover after a disaster as the data can be restored to a new device.

What is remote backup?

Remote backup is a way of backing up your crucial data remotely, this means uploading files to a separate location through the Internet.

Remote backup is a great way of backing up data and crucial documents because it is stored in a separate location, remote backup software allows the user to schedule a time for the backup to run and it is clever enough to only upload files that have been changed recently saving time and bandwidth.

Remote backup is completely secure as it uses Stong AES-256 Encryption while transferring the data to a remote server and all of the time the data is stored on that server, you are in control of your data as you set the password up when you register for the remote backup service.

Benefits of A Remote Backup Service

• Automatic Backup Schedule
• You control your own data
• Strong AES-256 Encryption
• No Upfront Hardware Costs
• Data Available Anytime 24/7

Part two of this blog post will be published in the next couple of weeks

Topics Include:

• Comparing on line backup/external hard drive backup – pros/cons
• Image Backup VS Individual File Backup
• Different options for data backup – offsite/multiple locations