subject: The Importance Of a Good Computer Backup Plan [print this page] It's amazing how many people I encounter that have no backup plan in place to safeguard their valuable data on their computer. As the owner of The PC Rescue Man, I am saddened when my customers have a hard drive crash and have to go to the data recovery experts to get their data back. Most people think disasters, like hard drive failure, will only happen to other people.
According to a ComputerWorld article Hard Data, "it turns out that high-end and consumer drives have a lot in common. Typically they don't last the five years that drive vendors say they should, at least not in server-farm settings. Drive failures at Google take a big jump once drives get to be more than two years old. And according to the Carnegie Mellon team, those rising failure rates never level off they just keep going up as drives get older".
So what does that mean for you and me? We definitely need to have a computer backup plan or sooner or later we are going to suffer from data loss. Of course, if you are a risk taker, I guess you could always try your luck and hope that it doesn't happen to you (not recommended).
Just think of your priceless data on your computer for a moment and try to picture losing it. If you're a mom or parent, it might be your precious pictures of your kids or your grand kids. If you are a business owner, it might be important business documents such as invoices and tax documents. A basic backup plan will keep your data safe and help you operate with less stress knowing that you are not living on the edge.
A good basic backup plan usually requires a local data backup (onsite) as well as an remote data backup (offsite). For your onsite backup, there are many different media types that you can use. There is some great free backup software that is available on the web, my favorite is called SyncBack Free.
As mentioned, your backup plan should also include an offsite data backup. Disasters such lightning, flooding, fire, etc. and you could lose everything. Offline backups are very affordable too, usually around $5.00 per month for unlimited data backup.
Don't take chances with your valuable data! Put a solid backup plan in place. You will be glad you did.
They say it's not if your hard drive will fail but when...
