One of the saddest things I sometimes have to tell my customers is that they have lost their data.
Imagine for a moment you have a business with thousands of invoices stored on your PC which have to be presented to an income tax inspector. Imagine you have photographs stored on your PC of a close relative or friend who has just died. Imagine you are a student who has three years work researched intensively and all stored on your PC just needing to be finished and presented as a thesis. Imagine you have crucially important letters stored on your PC relating to inheritance, insurance claims and legal matters.
The one thing you would want in every instance is to be able to retrieve and print these documents and pictures as appropriate.
These are all defined as data – and for a variety of reasons - sometimes data gets corrupted and deleted. It’s not funny and it’s really heartbreaking to tell a teenager their hard labour on their homework for the last year has all been lost.
It happens – and all too frequently.
But – it’s completely avoidable.
Sometimes data can be retrieved – but there’s no guarantee of being able to retrieve it – and it can be very expensive to retrieve.
Here are a few hints and tips about backing up your data:-
1 Backing up data is a discipline of practice. An ideal is to back up every file and picture as they are made and modified. Don’t delay, your hard disk could crash an hour later. This might seem time consuming but nowhere near as time consuming as trying to get that data retrieved nor as painful or expensive. If pressure of work makes it hard to achieve the ideal, aim to back up all files made or changed at least every day.
2 Keep your PC tidy. Keep you files, photos and folders in an orderly arrangement. Avoid long file names. Being able to identify important files helps with prioritizing what is really crucial to back up.
3 Prioritize. There are some photos and files that it isn’t really important to keep. In all probability of 1,000 letters stored on a PC only 100 or less might be fairly importantl. Delete the unimportant files or store them in a low priority folder.
4 Prioritize again. Of the really important files and photos some will be more critically important than others. As a general rule of thumb reckon that important files should be stored in one other place besides your hard disk. Crucially important files such as a thesis should be stored in three locations, one of them being your hard disk.
5 Know your media. That is, where you back your files up to. There are several different media available to back up to:-
Floppy disk – not used much these days – but there is often a lot of data previously stored on floppies. *
CD – this is a very common means of storing data, especially big files that won’t go on to a floppy disk. *****
DVD – Like the CD but it will store much more data. *****
2nd internal hard drive – convenient on a single PC - but is always switched on. ***
External hard drive – this can store data very conveniently and especially on a network. ****
Flash pen – Convenient but (really) requires front USB ports or a USB hub (extension).**
Internet – files can be stored as e-mail attachments with an internet e-mail account and some sites are for backup. **
(The star ratings are rough a guide to the reliability of long term storage and capacity).
6 Store you media in a sensible place. Don’t store somewhere liable to excessive cold, heat or light. Don’t store where the media is subject to mechanical stress and vibration and protect CDs and DVDs with covers to avoid scratching them. Store the media methodically. Don't store near to places where there are strong magnetic fields such as microwave ovens.
7 Don’t mark media with hard pens such as biros. Special CD pens are available and even soft acetate pens are quite good.
8 Don’t neglect security. Media left where it can be stolen or vandalized may just get stolen or vandalized. It might give some peace of mind to have media in two homes or offices. Also, protect sensitive data with a password.
9 Finally, if you do lose data, at least contact me to see if it can be retrieved – I have some great success stories.
If you don't know how to back up data, contact me for a teaching session.