PCIS Blog — Conversations about technology for the business executive

It’s been the number one rule for working on computers pretty much since the beginning: save your work and back it up somewhere else. Eventually, the hardware you’re using WILL fail. You need to make sure your hard work doesn’t vaporize with the last cough of your hard drive or software. That goes triple for business.

But without automated backup built into your process, it’s almost inevitable that you’ll face a data recovery disaster. They still happen all the time. Globe and Mail reporter Michael Snider furnishes an example in “A Way to Protect Your Sunshine”:

Last October, a power failure crashed my computer while I was installing a Windows Vista service pack update. The operating system would not boot after that and though I tried to fix the problem with help from a few Globe and Mail IT staff and Microsoft Support I ended up having to wipe my hard drive and reinstall the OS.

I lost a lot of stuff.

I had backed up my documents a few weeks earlier on a second PC in my home, and have, over the years, copied my music and pictures. But I have never backed up my entire video folder because ... I don't know.

Are there files not backed up on your computer because… you don’t know? If you’re like most people, you’re probably shrugging guiltily right now.

Fortunately, there are a number of solutions individuals and businesses can take to prevent a data recovery disaster. You could buy a networked hard drive and back up your data there. You can buy software to automatically backup your data regularly as you work.

Data disaster recovery is a lot pricier than ensuring your work is safe to begin with.
If you’re not sure which solution to go with, talk to an IT expert and get it done ASAP.

Remember, everybody can do a backup, but only a few chosen ones can do a data restore.