Today is the last day of March and an important day for all of us. It’s World Backup Day. It really would be nice if we could back the world up to a time when it seemed to be a kinder, more peaceful place — but — given that we can’t do that, we can at least take steps to protect our information.
Today’s blog can be considered a public service announcement — to remind you to backup all the data on your electronic devices. This is one of those things you should practice at least weekly, if not daily.
A lot of people only go to church on Easter, and maybe Christmas — that’s better than not at all but…. same with backing up your data — if you only do it on World Backup Day, that’s better than not at all, but…
Before computers, there was no need for a World Backup Day, although it was still important to keep track of important papers and information — by keeping valuable documents in a safe deposit box, or maybe a fireproof safe. Those things worked until the computer came of age and we suddenly became overwhelmed with data.
The real need/problem started with the disk drive, capable of storing lots and lots of information. Then, if that wasn’t enough, along came “cloud storage.” Naturally, loss of huge amounts of data can be devastating — and finally Ismail Jadun, who was a student at the time, created World Backup day, mostly as a joke. But it became legitimate and it’s no joke.
Back up and keep at least one extra copy of your data on a separate storage device, or even in the cloud will protect you in case your original copy becomes destroyed or damaged or for some other reason is inaccessible.
Another threat —ransomware — has become a bigger problem recently and a backup, or multiple backups can be a way to protect against losing access to data from such malware.
However you do it, be sure to back up your dat regularly, and in more than one place.
Maybe it’s appropriate that March 31 was chosen as backup day because if people lose their data, by accident or some other means, it’ll make them a real April Fool.
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