Imagine this horror scenario. You’ve been storing photos on your computer for years and have amassed hundreds (if not thousands!) of memories – friends, family, holidays and pictures of you in your Darth Vader Halloween costume (or is that just me?!). One day your computer suddenly decides to give up the ghost and dies on you. Or maybe your laptop, where you keep all your photos, gets stolen.

Have you got backups of your precious memories?

No…

All those memories, gone forever.

Not a pleasant thought, is it? Now, it might not just be photos – when it comes to backing up your computer it could be documents of one sort or another that are important to you, or it could be home videos that you’ve taken on a video camera, or smartphone, and then saved on your computer. Anything you hold precious or important, and don’t want to lose. You need a backup. Actually, if you’re serious about not losing those items, you should ideally follow the 3-2-1 backup rule.

The rule is simple and goes like this:

• Have at least 3 copies of your data (photos, videos, documents etc.)
• Keep these backups on 2 different media
• Store 1 backup offsite

Rule # 1

By three copies, I mean your original data and two backups. Obviously, the more copies of your data you have, the less risk you have of losing everything. One backup is good, just not good enough. If you only have one other copy of your data, try your hardest to make sure it’s in a different physical location from the original (so, not just next door to where your computer is, in a different room).

Rule # 2

So, you’ve made a good start and made sure you have multiple copies of your data? You’ve stored all the copies/backups on your main computer. Then your computer goes “bang” and dies. Stone cold dead. All those backups you made on the computer are worthless. The 3-2-1 backup rule urges you to keep backups on a wide range of different media types: USB thumb drives, external and internal hard drives. Heck, even CDs will do the trick. So, whilst your original data might be on your desktop computer or laptop, make sure there is a copy on an external hard drive (something like this from Western Digital, will set you back less that $100 – a small price to pay), or other type of storage media. That way if your computer dies, there is still a backup on the external hard drive.

Rule # 3

For the offsite backup rule, there are a couple of options. The first is to store your backups on, for example an external hard drive or USB drive and store them at a family member’s or friend’s house. Or, if you have sensitive data of some kind, or you’re just really precious (nothing wrong with that!), you could even store them in a safety deposit box at your bank.

The second option is to store them with a cloud backup service. These are services run by big names like Google or Dropbox whereby your data is securely stored on a massive computer somewhere in the world, where only you have access (you’ll be sharing this space with many others). Both the aforementioned services from Google and Dropbox are very widely used worldwide, and well respected. Both offer free space when you get an account, and extra space can be purchased at any time. Google’s offering is called Drive, whilst Dropbox is both the name of the company and their service.

So, follow the 3-2-1 rule and feel more secure in the knowledge that your data is safe and sound. If you don’t yet have a backup system in place and you need some help, don’t hesitate to contact us and see how we can help you make your backups a…Priority.