Back up Solutions to Keep Your Precious Data Safe

How are you backing up the data on your home/ home office computer?I recently had a client call me in complete distress over some photographs he could not find on his computer. He thought he’d accidentally deleted the folder they were in, and upon further investigation, sure enough he had.

We looked in his Windows recycling bin and unfortunately the folder was not there to be recovered by the standard methods to retrieve accidentally deleted files or folders in the Microsoft Windows operating system. My client had no duplicate copies anywhere else on the computer hard drive.Now, my client was under the impression that he was covered because he had an external hard drive that he used as a backup to his computer. He figured that all would be well with this extra fail-safe in place, right? Wrong. As Murphy’s Law would have it, his external back up died that very same day. The external drive would not power up no matter what we tried.

My client was again devastated with the news of the external hard drive’s demise. He was faced with the painful reality that the beloved childhood photos that documented his son’s life were gone, nowhere to be replaced.

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Although this scenario may sound like the sort of bad luck that could not happen to you, believe me it could. My client is not the first to experience this calamity. Such stories abound all around the web.

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Fortunately this story does have a happy ending.

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My client works in a home office with his wife who assists him. The work on her computer was even more vulnerable than his, as she didn’t have an external hard drive on her computer to back up her files. To remove the risk of her files facing a similar demise, I recommended another back up plan: a service that would store her files online. I suggested Mozy, an online back up service that caters to the needs of the small business and home office niche. Mozy was able to back up not only the files on her hard drive, but also the files from my client’s external hard drive on his computer through the computer network.

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After checking the Mozy online backup, we were able to retrieve the folder of priceless photos my client had mistakenly deleted. You can only imagine his relief.

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Computer hard drives, both internal and external, can and eventually WILL fail. Don’t wait another moment to back up data that is precious to you and your business. There is nothing like peace of mind.

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Here are some online back up services that I suggest you consider to protect your data from hard drive failure and natural disaster:

(Full disclosure: Mozy is a paid referral affiliate link. After doing my own due diligence, Mozy was the option I believed was best and the one I’ve trusted for my own backup storage needs.)

All the best,

JB