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This April Fool’s Eve, March 31, is World Backup Day. This day encourages you to take the pledge to take steps to back up your data. What would you do if you lost everything? Losing important documents and memories forever from your phone, computer, or tablet would be disastrous?
Why Should You Backup?
Losing files is more common than you think. It may have happened to you, your business, or someone you know—hard drives crashed, computers or phones were stolen, floods or fires, etc. Having a backup plan could have prevented this disaster.
Did You Know:
30% of people have never backed up
113 phones are lost or stolen every minute
1 in 10 computers are infected with viruses each month
31% of PC users have lost all of their files due to events beyond their control
140,000 hard drives crash in the US every week
60% of companies that lose their data will shut down within six months of the disaster
How to Backup Your Files:
According to World Backup Day, there are best practices to backup your files to prevent loss of information. When it comes to backing up your files, the best approach is to remember the computer backup rule of three, also known as the Backup 3-2-1 Rule, to ensure that your data will last.
3 Copies of Everything
Example: 1 Primary + 2 Secondary Backups
2 Different Media Types
Example: USB External Hard Drive + CD/DVD
You’ll need an external hard drive for this, preferably one that holds more than your computer can. Place one in a different location in case of disaster.
1 Offsite Backup
A great way to start saving important smaller files to the internet is by using OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive, and Amazon Cloud Drive to back up items that do not require a lot of space.
Backing Up Your Whole Computer
If you’d rather backup everything on your computer, there are cloud and offsite services such as data centers to house all of your data-
How to Keep Your Data Secure:
As backups fill up more space on hard drives, CD’s/DVD’s/Flash Drives, disposing of the old data the right way is more important than backing it up. Backing up does not mean your information is secure! Your data never goes away. When a file is deleted from a hard drive or placed in the recycle bin, it isn’t erased – the information still exists.
The only way to securely erase personal data is through Hard Drive and Media Destruction. Hiring a professional and trusted document destruction company specializing in Hard Drive and Media Destruction will ensure your data is properly destroyed. It is critical to take these safety measures to avoid a potential risk of a data breach.
A research study by National Association for Information Destruction (NAID) has shown that even if hard drives and other devices are obsolete or broken down, merely tossing or recycling them is a huge security risk.
Make sure your data is protected. If your business or home media does not have a plan to safely backup and properly destroy old data, we strongly recommend you start now in honor of World Backup Day.
To learn more about how Shark Shredding can protect your confidential data with paper shredding and Hard Drive/Media Destruction, please contact us or call 708-388-0011.
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