How not to lose all your data irretrievably?

The reasons to make backup copies are many and all equally important. For years, we have increasingly seen ransomware attacks that affect both businesses and individuals. Nevertheless, data can also be lost in more trivial ways – if a device is lost, damaged, or stolen, access to the data stored on it can be irretrievably lost.

There are many ways to make backup copies, and it's up to you which one you opt for:

You can copy essential files to external drives or memory sticks which you will store in rooms other than the computer. You can use cloud platforms such as Google Drive, AWS, or iCloud, to which you can transfer the most important documents from your local drives, or to which you will relocate your work entirely so that you don’t have to store files on your own devices. You can use dedicated backup solutions that will perform backups automatically following a set schedule (or simply in the background while you’re using your computer/smartphone). Some antivirus software providers make such solutions available as part of computer security packages.

Whichever way you back your data up, there are a few rules to keep in mind:

• You need to also protect the copies with a password, which has to be different from that used for the original files.
• If you make copies on physical disks, store them in a location different from the one where the original machine is used (e.g. in case of theft, flooding, or fire).
• It's a good idea to make more than one backup copy of the same document, just in case something unforeseen happens.
• Copies should be made frequently and regularly so that in the event of problems you don’t have to recreate data from the past few months.