The thought of having a
disaster whether natural or otherwise is scary enough but when you think about
all that will be lost, it is even scarier. No matter what kind of disaster you
have, there will not only be data lost but also human lives. Human lives cannot
be brought back but if you have the right plan in place, you can recover all
your lost data. Of course we never want any kind of disaster to happen but as
soon as we become lax and not prepared, that is when it will happen, when we
least expect it.
Not only does the government
need to prepare but also the IT organizations all over the world and private
citizens do as well, just in case. No doubt the government has disaster plans
already in place as do IT organizations as a matter of fact, the most people in
the world who lose data due to a disaster are private citizens and small
businesses. The main questions are, are you using a backup
system and if so, are you backing up everything you need to? Assuming you are
using a computer for your files, as most people do, how are you backing up your
personal and or business information?
Years ago, backing up took
forever, storage was expensive and there was never enough space causing you to
have to either go buy more or delete the files you have no room for. Now however, it is much less expensive, you
can get Terabytes of space in a small external hard drive, making it pretty
much unlimited and it only takes a matter of a few minutes to backup an entire
system. It also used to be that people thought they only needed to backup
personal data, photos, personal webpages,
etc. but if you were involved in a disaster and the only thing you had
time to grab was your external hard drive, how would you access it without your
system CDs or operating system CDs and applications.
Not only is it vital to backup
personal information and data, it is even more vital to backup your online
business. In the case of a disaster, what if your server went down and you had
to go with another one to keep your business up and running. Would you have all
the necessary files to send to the new server? Not if you have not backed up
everything. If your only means of earning a living is your online business you
must backup the entire website. That includes bookmarks and email addresses as
well as emails that have customer information so they can be contacted as soon
as the disaster passes.
Probably the most important
thing after everything is backed up is making sure you can recover all that
data. If your computer was lost in the disaster, you will have to buy a new
one. In that case, you need to make sure that the external hard drive you have
everything backed up on will be compatible with the new computer. Before you
buy a new computer, make sure and know what your OS is so you will be able to
get a computer that is compatible with that. If you do these things, it should
not take you long to install your OS and browser on the new computer, install
and recover all your data and get back up and running.
Author Bio:This blog was provided by QeH2.com. For more information on
data safety and data
recovery, consult QeH2 for backup disaster recovery
planning services.