Backup
Data loss can happen at any time, usually without warning ! Hard drives can fail, virus’s can delete important information.
We find that most users don’t appreciate the magnitude of the problem if they lose their data.
The two scenarios are real life examples of data loss our customers have hit with
Example 1: Home User
5500 Personal Family photos. (6 years worth of digital photos, with no printed copies all lost)
Hundreds of Microsoft word files (Children’s School Work / College Essays , CV’S, legal correspondence all lost)
Hundreds of emails ( personal family correspondence all lost)
Hundred of email addresses (all lost)
Family accounts (6 years worth of personal accounts all lost)
Summary
In the case a large part of the family photos were lost, these included several years worth of photos of the families new born baby. The older children were forced to write college work in a short time scale to the the data loss happening under a week before assignments were due. All of this could have been prevented with a simple and cheap backup system.
31% of PC users have lost all of their files due to events beyond their control.
Every week 140,000 hard drives crash in the United States. (Mozy Online Backup)
Simple drive recovery can cost upwards of £1,000 and success is not guaranteed.
Viruses – 10% of PCs are infected with viruses each month. Of these, 37% of computer virus infections result in data loss. (Source – ICSA Labs/TruSecure, 2002)
Example 2: Business User
Thousands of client records (customer billing information, current status of projects all lost)
Thousands of design drawings (current and past customer project information all lost)
Hundreds of Microsoft word files (all lost)
Thousands of emails ( Past and current project correspondence all lost)
Thousands of email addresses (all lost)
Years worth of business accounts ( all lost)
Summary
This company spent months trying to rebuild their business having lost all of their customers information, accounts, project work and most of all emails and addresses. This could have been prevented with a backup system!
93% of businesses that suffer data loss for more than 10 days file for bankruptcy within 1 year, 50% immediately Source – British Chamber of Commerce ICT Report
Up to 20% of PCs suffer hardware failure in the first three years of use. Source – Garter Analyst M. Margevicius, Aug 2001
Laptop Loss – Of the 2.3 million insurance claims for computer loss in 2001, 25% were theft related; notebook theft has increased by 53% since 2000. Source – Safeware, The Insurance Agency Inc. 2001
How can you backup ?
There are several ways to back up below we will have a look at some of the options to suit any situation.
Email to Self.
One of the most basic ways to backup information is to use email. By using a free email system with a large amount of space (googlemail.com) you can email documents to yourself, and have the document stored on the Google server.
This method is particularly good for students who usually transfer coursework from college / uni to home and back using memory sticks. Memory sticks can be very unpredictable and can often lose information. By emailing a copy of your work to your own email makes sure you never have to redo a piece of coursework due to data loss again.
Drop Box
Drop box is online storage. Signup for an account, Get 2GB of free space select which files you want to back up, and forget about it . Drop box automatically syncs your files as you change them or add new ones.
Idea for backing up School work, College essays or Uni Coursework. Drop box is also perfect for backing up family documents and emails.
Backup Drive
For large backup systems, drop us an email and we can advise on the best solution for you, we can make sure your not paying over the odds and can periodically make sure your backup is still working.
To help people out in understanding how these con-men try and work their way in to your system I took some notes while stringing the friendly Indian ‘Support’ guy along.