A brief discussion on the merits of creating regular backups of your data.
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Although there is no way to put a monetary value on the data stored on your computer, its loss will often cause more problems than the loss or malfunction of hardware. Computer hardware can be replaced relatively quickly and cheaply; unique data may have been built up over years of research and work, recording or collection.
Data loss can be absolutely catastrophic to businesses of any size. Loss can also be heartbreaking for home users when irreplaceable digital artifacts (think of that large, unique, photograph collection you built up over five years of happy snapping) are lost forever.
There is a solution: take a copy of the data and store it somewhere safe. The copy of your data is known as a backup.
Taking a backup of large amounts of data is sometimes considered difficult or painful enough to consider simply not doing it, and this prevents people from taking the first vital steps towards educating themselves on the topic. This is a dangerous and unnecessary attitude to adopt.
While backups may take a little work each time it is required, it is nothing compared to the work required to restore the data that you’re saving. If you are able to automate the process (and you do not need a big business budget to be able to do this), then a little initial work may be all that is required and you can let it run on its own from thereon.
The concept of ’saving time’ by not creating backups is certainly a misnomer and a serious false economy.
For further discussion on the backup process, see the other articles in our Data Backup category. You may also like to visit our sister site Perfect Backups for a comprehensive assessment of the backup process. We are add more articles on a regular basis, so be sure to check back soon. Why not add us to your favourites to save you having to remember the address?
