Backup & Migrate Your Photos, Videos, and Documents.

Data is gold: pictures of your loved ones, videos, music, and documents. You want to keep them for as long as it is possible, especially those that are special and truly memorable.

Businesses too need a strategy to back up data.

A data strategy helps us migrate to newer, safer, easy-to-retrieve data-back-up resting places. Over time, data has moved from floppies, CDS, external drives, and even the cloud.

Printing, on paper, is also a form of data backup!

For a business, losing data equals losing your competitive advantage, and income, and slows growth. It might be easy to save your data today but the risk of losing it all is still high.

If your data is only in one place, then it’s not backed up! That is why data backup is very important. Most small-scale businesses do not invest in data backup & data migration and as a result, lose out in case of cyber-attacks for instance.

A lot of people also assume that since they have saved their data, then it is safe and they can retrieve it at any given time and that is where we go wrong.

Here are the common data backup mistakes that a majority of us make.

1. No Backup

At some point in our lives, we have all made this mistake. Overlooking the possibility of losing data. Anything can happen to your business or even personal information. It could be a simple human error, it could be a natural disaster, or it could be a ransomware or malware attack. There is really no knowing when, where or how someone can experience a misfortune. We cannot control what happens at all times but we can be prepared for any eventualities.

You need to know which data and information are important and should be backed up. Create a program on how frequently you will be backing up the data, it can be daily, weekly, or monthly. Keep the devices or software that you are using to back up your data safely.

• Not Using Mobile Backup

Mobile devices have become a very important part of our daily activities including work and business. There is a wide range of mobile devices besides phones. We have tablets, laptops, and electronic devices that are easily portable. But mobile phones have become susceptible to malware and data breaches. You do not have to lose your data when we have backup plans like Google Drive, OneDrive, and Cloud among others. You can back up your business’ data to a single platform or in a single data storage source.

Have more than one backup option for your data and information. You can store your data on flash drives, compact disks, and the cloud. 

• Using Physical Storage Only

For a long period of time, a lot of companies relied on physical storage as a way of storing data. Physical storage is the only way your information is both tangible and visible. It is also risky because the files can be stolen easily, a fire can destroy them, or even flood them. Things are slowly changing with technology. Cloud storage is intangible therefore defying natural disasters, though, your account logins can be hacked.

We recommend 3 resting places for your most important data. Having all your backed-up data in one location makes it more vulnerable to on-site disasters, whether it is physical or digital, and can more easily be jeopardized.

• Ignoring Verification of Your Data

While the goal is to save all your data, ensuring you save the data correctly is just as important. Ensure you check and verify all your data and information before deleting the original copy. Sometimes we ignore the verification process only to realize later that we have lost some vital data and information.

• Differentiating Between Backup and Archives

Back-up is different from archiving data. While backup is converting data and information for storage, archiving is basically data that will not be converted because it is no longer needed. Clearing your archives of data and information that you don’t need will create more storage space for your backup.

• Not Regularly Testing Your Backup

While it is good to back up your data, you need to check if the devices that you are using to back up your data are working. You should regularly check if your thumb drives, hard disks, and compact disks are working, or getting corrupted. The goal is to be able to retrieve your data whenever you need to.

50 years from today, our kids, grandkids, and future historians will want to understand our world. Today’s pictures, videos, and documents (stored in various formats – .doc, pdf, CSV) will prove helpful in giving them insight into our lives and communities.

Save and hope that the data will be readable decades out since file and data formats keep changing.

Keep your data migrating & backed up.