What If Your Backups Didn’t Work When You Tried To Recover?

The time and effort that you’ve invested into your data is significant, and a lot of your life depends on the information stored in your machine. If a hard drive crash or virus were to ever wipe out your system, it would be like losing several years of productivity overnight. And much of this data might also be completely irreplaceable.

A data loss catastrophe can put you weeks behind schedule, cause lots of unneeded stress, or (in some extreme cases) even destroy a career.

Although most of us back up on a regular basis, many make costly mistakes when protecting our files. There are a number of reasons why your backups might not save you when you need to recover. Here are a few of the most common:

• You weren’t backing up the right folders. This is one of the most common reasons that people forget to back up their Outlook emails.
• You fell out of the backup habit, or your computer crashed before you had a chance to back up. This is another common scenario, since the most recent files are also usually the most important.
• The backup copies were corrupted. Mechanical storage devices sometimes fail. This is why you need to keep several copies of your backups, just in case Murphy’s Law gets put into action.
• You thought you had been backing up certain files, but you actually weren’t. Since humans make lots of mistakes, you’ll want to ensure that your backups are automated using software.
• Backup copies were kept with the main computer, and both were stolen/destroyed at the same time.
• You don’t back up at all, or at least not often. Unfortunately, this is very common since we’re all very busy with more important things. It’s just one more reason to automate your backups.

In order to ensure your own peace of mind, make sure that your backups are automated and sent off-site. And most importantly, test your backups at least 3 times a year… just in case.  You can never be too careful, and you’ve got a lot to lose if something should go wrong.

>> Storagepipe offers a range of fully-automated online backup software solutions that help users gain peace-of-mind.