Recovery: backing up your data and devices

Back Up Your Files

If disaster is just a step away, make sure your recovery is too

If you lost your personal or business critical information how would you cope? Could you recover and how much disruption would you face?

Hard disks fail, viruses can wipe out data, your laptop may be stolen or a natural disaster may see your home or place of business destroyed.

It pays to be prepared with one or several copies of important information kept securely away from your home or business.

Backup tips:

  • Plan for the worst case scenario – no matter how unlikely that may seem (consider the Christchurch earthquakes)
  • Backup all your data regularly and consider keeping multiple copies made over a period of time
  • Encrypt or password protect your backups to ensure privacy
  • Store your backups ‘offsite’ or in different locations to spread the risk
  • Restore some data occasionally to ensure your backups work

Being prepared doesn’t need to be costly – there are many free online services you can use to keep backups ‘in the cloud’ but again consider what would happen if the service was hacked or went out of business.

You can keep copies on USB sticks, rewritable CDs or DVDs or external hard drives. Just be sure to set a backup routine – daily or weekly, you decide – and stick to it so you can recover from any situation.

The 3-2-1 rule of backups is keep 3 copies on 2 different media types with 1 copy stored offsite.

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