Backing up your data is something that most of us should do but don’t. You would backup your data for a variety of reasons, for example, businesses may back up their data because they fear a cyberattack while individuals may back up their data to keep their memories alive. Today we will look at some of the best ways and methods of backing up your data.
Using a simple USB stick
If you simply want to keep some of your homework or photos safe you may want to choose something as simple as a USB stick or thumb drive as some may call them. A USB stick is cheap, comes in a range of sizes and can backup your data in minutes.
USB sticks have been around for a long time now and as a result, you can get them fairly cheap on the internet. One of the main problems with thumb drives is that they are very small and can easily be lost and along with it your data.
Our tip to avoid this would be to backup your data on a thumb drive and leave it in a secure location in your home or business. This way you won’t have to worry about losing it.
Digitising your old media
Old media files such as audio cassettes or VHS tapes are rare these days but for the older generation among us, it was quite common to store some of the most important memories on a VHS tape. Christmas day with the family, christenings and even weddings were recorded and stored on VHS tapes.
These days VHS players aren’t too common and VHS tapes do degrade over time so if you want to back up any old VHS tapes you can do this by either purchasing specialist equipment or by using an online service such as Digital Converters. By digitising your old tapes you can then transfer them to DVD, USB or external hard drives too. This gives you multiple copies so that your special memories will always be around.
External Hard Drives
A cheap and very efficient way of making backup copies of your data is to purchase an external hard drive. Just like a USB thumb drive these are fairly inexpensive and can hold a lot of data ranging from a few gigabytes to a few terabytes which is more than most will ever need.
External hard drives are larger than thumb drives too so you don’t have to worry about ever losing them. Our word of advice though is to make backups of your external hard drive because we have heard of horror stories where entire drives have become damaged and all the data has been lost.
Using the cloud
The cloud is a great way of backing up your data without too much fuss and without having to break the bank. Digital services such as Dropbox, offer affordable yearly plans that you can use for both personal and business usage.
Uploading to the cloud is cheap, quick and a very safe way of keeping all of your data safe and within arms reach. Using a digital solution such as the cloud also gives you extra security measures out of the box that physical solutions such as an external hard drive doesn’t.
Cloud storage is very convenient too and if you go with someone such as Dropbox you can install an app on your computer which will sync your files automatically. Having this in place is great for those who don’t have much time to perform daily or weekly backups.
Combining the above methods for ultimate protection
Using one of the above methods for protecting your data is going to give you more protection than someone who doesn’t use any of the methods but with that said the best practice for backing up your data should be to use multiple backups.
Our recommendation would be to have a physical and digital solution for your data. This way if you lose one or a digital version gets infected you will have another backup that can be used to restore the other one. You will also have your original data too which can also be used to create a backup. For precious memories or business files you can never be too careful and having multiple backups is the safest way of keeping your data safe.