A New Year’s Data Resolution To Stick To

Many of us set goals, tasks, and challenges to tackle in the new year.  Cleaning out the spare room, shopping around for the best energy deals, or exercising more than we did last year.   We set these goals to improve our lives and build on productivity, health, and organization in the future.

Resolutions to improve for the coming year are great ideas to aspire towards; whether organizing your office, tidying your house, or taking control of your digital footprint.  The problem for many is motivation can quickly fall away by the time February rolls around. If you manage to achieve only one of your new year goals for this year, make it to put a good backup in place for your digital files.

Storage failure, theft, accident, or natural disaster can impact at any time.  Many of us put these possibilities to the back of our minds.  We plan to organize our files ‘eventually’ and then never get around to it.  It’s easy to think ‘it won’t happen to me’ or make creating a backup something that is always to be done tomorrow.

Replacing Old Valuables

Almost anything you own can be replaced one way or another.   A broken laptop, tablet, or phone can easily be replaced with another model.  Even credit card or financial details, if stolen or lost, can be cancelled and replaced by the bank in under a week.

Losing data, however, is far tougher to face.  Without a safe backup, there’s no way to recover it once it is gone.  Backups provide a service which could be described as the world’s best insurance policy.

While an insurer will often give you some, even most, of the value of the previous goods lost; data backup provides you with your exact data, precisely how you left it.  It does this instantly, repeatedly, and without any additional charges or excess.  In some instances, it is even automatic and done behind the scenes.

Recovering Irreplaceable Data

There are almost certainly old essays, browser bookmarks, and notes that you can comfortably live without.  Equally, there are likely to be photographs, videos, and important documents that you couldn’t or should not part with.

For many, these files can be as valuable as the memories themselves: photographs of loved ones, long ago vacations, or milestone events in life. We commonly take critical data for granted; Assuming that because we can access it today, it will still be there tomorrow.  This is unfortunately not always true.

These irreplaceable files are too important to keep in just a single place.  Retaining only a single copy leaves your data vulnerable to luck and chance as to how long and if it survives.

Losing Data In An Instant

Data storage is liable to develop faults or failures at any time.  Often a storage failure isn’t made apparent until the device fails to turn on or dies suddenly.  These types of hardware failure become more and more likely as devices age.

Similarly, modern devices are more and more vulnerable to loss or theft as they get smaller and lighter.  While criminals are not likely to be interested in your irreplaceable photographs and documents, they are vulnerable to being stolen along with the device they plan to sell. Whether lost through natural disaster such as flood or fire, misplaced by accident, or stolen by criminals; important files are truly painful to lose.

If you were to lose these files in an instant today, how much would you pay to end that stress and get them back again?  Setting up a good backup is only a tiny fraction of the cost without any of the pain.

Backup For You

With the right backup solution, it doesn’t matter how many devices are lost or stolen.  Even without a device or away from home, the data important to you can be kept safe and sound to be returned to you when you’re ready again.

Regular, consistent backups can even be made for you, automatic and in the background.  Documents you create, photographs and video you take can be backed up and kept safe from the second they are captured or saved.

If you have travelled too long on borrowed luck, without putting a backup in place, give us a call at 540-266-3304 to get set up with a robust and dependable backup solution for your data.