OK, apart from the reference to a fairly obscure UK pub rock band in the title, what will you do if the lights go out and your PC crashes, or you get one of those viruses that corrupts or deletes your data when you are in the middle of writing that all important quote, dissertation, report, financial review or other business critical article? Your first reaction might be one of disbelief, shock or horror but those amongst you who have a data back-up strategy will be far calmer than those without and this email is aimed at those without any form of back-up strategy.
When you examine the number of things that can happen that may corrupt our data the list is quite eye opening. Yes, we know about viruses, about PC crashes and simple power failures but did you know that your fridge, central heating or near-by thunderstorm can cause data corruption?
When domestic thermostats switch on or off they can create a spike of electricity that is many thousands of volts and if your PC is on the same circuit then this spike can easily corrupt data on a hard drive, as can lightning strikes which can send a similar pulse down power cables and phone lines – which is why it is always recommended to unplug computer and communications equipment in a thunderstorm – and note the reference to unplugging not simply switching off.
Think of what’s at risk – your emails, all of them, contact details, business financial, outstanding payment information, quotations, work – anything that you use your PC for is at risk. The former Government Department that focused on business, the DTI – Department for Trade and industry – once carried out a a survey in to data loss and the results were quite shocking, over 60% of businesses who suffered a significant loss of data were out of business within 12 months of the loss occurring.
So what should you be doing?
You need to examine how business critical the information on your computer is and what the imapct will be on your business should you suffer a loss of data. If the risk is high then you need to put a plan in to place to ensure that in the event of a loss of data that you can get your business back up and running very quickly.
The ideal back-up solution is one which backs up your data regularly and where the medium selected is robust and stored off-site. Now, let’s break that down a little.
Regularly – this is based on the way that you work. If you sit at your PC one day a week to update business accounts, records etc then you only need to back-up once a week. If you use your PC on a daily basis then you really should consider backing up every day, or even more frequently.
What medium should you choose? There’s loads to choose from, Saving to CDs and DVDs, USB memory sticks internal and external hard drives, data tapes, even backing up to the cloud [Internet]. Each media has advantages and drawbacks and so care should be taken when creating your back-up strategy, however makeuseof.com.com have put a simple guide together and if you are not backing up your business data can I recommend that you read their guide, “The Backup and Restore Guide” that’s free to download.
That will get you started and I’ll be writing a more detailed paper on data backup later this year.
And talking of that fairly obscure UK pub rock band, there’s no prizes but feel free to email or Tweet me [www.twitter.com/andypoulton] if you know who it is.
