Living in the age of big data is incredible but it also has some potentially serious drawbacks. And one that has perhaps off the radar for many people today is how safe your data is from data loss.
Maybe it’s because we are all constantly bombarded with information about our data being hacked, we focus on protecting ourselves from that, and we forget about the other danger, which is very real still, unfortunately.
Honestly, this is and has been a perennial problem for anybody storing any kind of computer data over the decades. From the days of punch cards before most people reading the article were even born, through the days of the venerable CD ROM and other similar technologies, we have struggled to keep proper backups of your data and keep them safe and in good working condition.
It’s really good to have a Plan B beyond backups because of this, like this data recovery software. Aside from that, it’s a good idea to have multiple backup solutions for your essential data, perhaps including offline AND cloud-based storage, to have all of your bases covered.
Ultimately, no form of backup (or redundancy, coming into use more and more) is truly 100% foolproof. This is not to say that backing up your data and/or implementing redundancy is not a good idea because they are both great tools. The danger comes when you place too much confidence in them.
This is why the best solution is one with multi layers. For example, have your critical data on an external drive (it’s always best not to mix data with system files no matter what). From there, make copies of that data to a suitable USB memory storage device. Also back up the most important parts of that data on some sort of cloud storage. Cloud storage is available for free but the amount of storage is very limited. Also, moving data to and from a cloud can be time consuming. If you have the money to pay for a fast enough connection and a dedicated server on a cloud, and you have enough critical data to make it worthwhile, it’s a good idea to go for that option.
Even in such circumstances, it is still possible to wind up missing critical information, but don’t let panic set in just yet! It’s possible to have accidentally deleted a file across multiple sources, for example, but there are data recovery options out there.
In the absolute worst-case scenario, you would have to bring a hard disk drive into a professional for the highest level of recovery. This process is time-consuming and expensive, but the good news is that if you follow all the steps listed above, this can almost always be avoided.
