important files

In recent years, we have witnessed that with the increasing use of computers, whether for private or business purposes, the possibility of data loss seems more than daunting.

Data Loss And How To Avoid It

This problem can occur in a variety of ways. Most often, a computer becomes infected with a virus, but there is also a real possibility that someone intentionally “invades” your computer system by compromising your messages, correspondence, contacts or financial documents. Large companies usually use the services of specialized agencies to prepare plans and rigorous procedures for their employees to act in the event of data loss. Small businesses and home users usually don’t have such plans or come down to the old, well-known saying: “Well, that won’t happen to me, and even if it does, I’ll call a friend who knows a lot about computers.” Do you find this familiar?

To prevent this from happening, we’ll give you some tips on how to save your data, or how to never lose anything on your computer.

Make A List Of Your Most Important Files

Make a list of the most important files, both on your computer and on portable devices such as your tablet, smartphone, and then create a backup system. First, identify the frequently changing data and the “permanent data” such as images, music, or video. Highlight those that need to be backed up frequently into special folders, or frequent backup groups. Then specify the frequency at which you will backup the files. It can be once a week, that will be quite enough.

Select Your Backup Media

The possibilities for this vary – from another disk to which you can simply copy files, through removable disks, optical disks and flash media, to some more serious solutions like NAS or Cloud. Companies that have multi-networked computers can create specific sets of policies for each user individually, thus preventing data loss by abolishing privileges for those who do not need those privileges for daily work. Also, large companies should occasionally organize meetings to discuss security and data protection with their employees. All employees using a computer must be educated about the importance of backup and must learn how to use it.

Prevent Data Loss Due To Human Error

It’s a famous saying – computers don’t make mistakes, it’s people who make mistakes. Although this is difficult for us to admit, most often we are the reason for our problems. So is the data. Take advantage of the protections you already have integrated. For example, if you are writing text, set up to automatically record content that you write in special versions of text every ten minutes.

Beware Of Viruses

Install one of the antivirus software packages. There are many of them, even the free ones. Keep in mind that if you need to visit some potentially malicious websites, you should avoid doing it from a computer containing the most important information or from a computer from which you make online payments, etc. Do not open files that came to you from unknown email addresses. Do not install new programs from unreliable sources.

Who Can Help You?

Data loss affects anyone who uses a computer. There is nothing more frustrating than losing important documents that you spend so much time creating. However, if important ones is lost, there are specialized laboratories such as Data Sector that deal with such problems. Situations like this can be especially problematic for those whose computer is their primary means of operation. Many professional companies receive a large number of customer calls almost daily. Many of them have lost their data and do not have a backup. Unfortunately, at that point, the process of saving it  is very expensive or sometimes impossible.

The data recovery process itself can sometimes be quite difficult to handle. To avoid such problems, back up your essential ones regularly and use the tips listed.

Keeping Data On Your Home Computer

In a home environment, keeping a backup in a remote location means only one thing – using cloud-based services such as Dropbox or Microsoft OneDrive. We are aware that there are various potential reasons for avoiding such backups. The reasons are mostly related to privacy, subscription, uncertainty as to when the selected company will handle the business, etc. Luckily, there is an alternative, starting with storing and sharing your backup with relatives and friends you trust, to building your cloud storage. We will explain what you need to do if this kind of problem occurs and how to recover the data stored in your backups.

Choosing A Backup Device

It would be ideal if the backup was done on two different media at the same time.

The Extra Drive

The extra drive – external or internal – comes to mind first. We recommend it to be used for the complete system image. For this purpose, it is possible to use a tool that comes with the operating system or any of the independent or freeware programs.

A Network Hard Drive

This is a secondary solution. It can be stored in a remote location or on a local home network. Data storage in the cloud is also a common variant, with the most popular services of this type like Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive and Google Drive. You can also improve security by using a data encryption service before sending it to such systems.

Cloud Storage Systems

If other options are not safe enough for you, then the right solution for you is a personal cloud storage system. Other computers are also a good choice for backing up your data. If you own multiple computers, you can synchronize data on them. The bonus with this backup method is that all of them  you use is always available on all computers.

Sharing Free Space

Another good solution you probably haven’t thought about is sharing free space on hard drives with relatives or friends you trust – you can store their backups on your computer, and they have yours on their computers. A little bit of “paranoia” is out of the question, so before you exchange your data, make sure they are encrypted, if nothing else with Winzip.