Spring Cleaning - Tips for Data Backup

    

It’s Friday 13th  What could possibly go wrong?Data loss

We may not be superstitious here at BAASS but you never know when you could lose all of your data if you don’t back it up!

Data backup is another neglected activity that should be at the top of your computing priority list, unless of course you don’t mind losing all your data in one clean sweep! It is one of those things where people think ‘It will never happen to me’. So I tell you now, you never know when it can happen, and it can happen to anyone! But there are ways to prevent the pain of getting wiped out!

How does it happen?

Data loss can happen in many ways. The most common is a physical failure of the media that it is stored on. I’m sure you store all your data on your PC hard drive – if this is the only place you store your data, you are on the right path to losing everything. Hard drives do not last forever; it will eventually fail and take all your files with it, never to be seen again.

Another point worth mentioning is data loss through virus attacks. Please make sure you have up-to-date anti-virus software installed on all of your computers. There are so many viruses out there that will wipe out the data on an infected machine. Other ways to lose data include power cuts, power surges, and the use of bad temporary storage media for permanent storage.

What Data Should You Backup?

Take a minute to think about all those things that you have accumulated over time, things that are difficult to replace. Email addresses are a great example. I’m sure you have a few ‘To-Do’ lists that you have been working on over a period of time that would be painful to lose. Also web pages that you have bookmarked, work documents and presentations and family photos are all good examples. Take a minute to think about what is important and what you could not stand to lose, and then take the initiative to store them on an external media.

If you are an Sage 300 (formerly Accpac) user, you can avail of the Orchid Process Scheduler which integrates with Sage 300 and will help you with all of your data backup needs.

For more information, contact BAASS Business Solutions.

BAASS Consultant

About The Author

BAASS Consultant