How often have you lost critical files only later to discover you didn’t back them up. Your first instinct is to panic, as protecting your data is crucial. If you don’t have a system in place, there are still potential opportunities to recover the data, but that can be costly. And, it’s not always guaranteed.
First, some facts about how we finally got serious about the need to back up our data, which led to an annual “holiday.”
September 15th, 1956
IBM engineer Reynold B. Johnson comes up with the idea of the external hard drive — the IBM 350 Disk File.
1960s
Computer Scientist Dr. Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider is believed to have invented cloud storage.
1998
"Toy Story 2" was almost wiped.
A year before the release of "Toy Story 2," somebody enters a command on the drives where Pixar stores the film's files, deleting 90% of the film.
2011
World Backup Day
After discussing backups on Reddit, student Ismail Jadun jokingly creates World Backup Day to be held annually on March 31st, eventually legitimizing it.
HOW TO GET STARTED?
ONE:
Set aside time to back up all the existing files on your desktop computer, laptop, or tablet. You can do this on the hard drive of your choice with at least 1 TB of space. Yes, you can go with a smaller hard drive, but you may need to upgrade as you continue to add more files.
TWO:
Don’t want to use a hard drive? The cloud has numerous companies that specialize in backing up your important data. Do your research and set it to auto backup, so you’re never missing a crucial backup.
THREE:
Have a little fun! Hold a “back up that thing” party and invite your staff to join you in doing a backup together. This activity can be fun and essential at the same time, as we would never want to lose that vital client file. Most technology-savvy companies have an automatic system in place with everyone on their network, so they’re not relying on individuals to perform that critical task.
FOUR:
Before the need arises in real-time, and once you’re fully backed up, run through the steps needed to restore those files. Otherwise, you’ll be scrambling to figure out how to restore your data when it happens. And we all know it’s when you’re busy with day-to-day tasks that a calamity occurs. Document the process and share it with other key team members to ensure you’re up and running quickly.
BENEFITS OF PERFORMING THE ABOVE TASKS
- It will be easy to grab the file you need from wherever you are (if in the cloud)
- Peace of mind. Some documents are irreplaceable, so we recommend backing them up on both a hard drive and the cloud.
DELETE. DELETE. DELETE.
When you have time, and we know that’s rare, set aside a specific amount of time each day or week and start weeding through old archived files. Eventually, you’ll get through all of them, and there will undoubtedly be some you can delete. The negative of this exercise is that you can easily get lost down a rabbit hole as you’ll come across many files you haven’t seen in a while. Delete what you can and sort the rest into folders that will allow you to find them quickly.
You will also come across duplicates that take up valuable space. Some apps can identify and delete the additional file copies; however, you may want to open both to compare for any differences. Remember, technology is beneficial but not always perfect.