Posted On 07 Aug 2021

In these days of ransomware, viruses and hacking, nobody who uses a computer should be without a backup for their data so that it can be recovered in the event of a data loss, whether virtual or physical. Below we detail six steps you can take to ensure your data stays safe.

Design a strategy: you should have a strategy for protecting your data so that you make sure you have all bases covered. Think about what data you need to protect and if there’s anything that doesn’t need protecting, how often you should back up your data (once every 24 hours is ideal for important data), and how often you should check whether your backup is running properly.

Always consider data security: the easiest way of losing your data is not to keep it secure. If hackers get access to your account, they can easily and quickly plunder it for the data they want. The easiest way to stop this happening is to implement two-factor authentication with your devices, so that when you login to an account you will be asked for a second means of authentication in the form of a code sent to another device. This simple precaution can increase your data protection by an order of magnitude.

Know where your data is: as we change hardware, operating systems, and services, our data becomes more and more scattered; it’s not uncommon to have some data stored in the cloud, some on a hard drive, some on an external hard drive, and so on. Draw up a map of where your data is stored, think about how it could be better organized and where the vulnerabilities in your storage lie.

Consider retention: backup systems generally offer a variety of retention lengths for backed up data, such as a month, a year, and forever. Think about your data needs and whether you just need short-term back up or a longer storage time.

Test your restore: obviously, no backup is worth anything if you can’t restore from it easily. If your data is lost, it’s too late to find out whether your backup works or not; test it out now and find out if there are any weaknesses in your restore plan that need addressing.

Archive data: if you need to retain data but won’t be using it in the foreseeable future, archiving can be a good solution. Archive facilities, whether on your computer or in the cloud, keep your data stored safely in a place that doesn’t take up main computer memory, allowing your computer to run faster.