Back It Up!

By now we all understand that for many of us, our data is one of our more valuable possessions. 

When a house fire destroyed a friend's history, memories and treasures, it suddenly dawned on me that many of the items we have that are of little or no value as marketable things are in fact some of our more treasured possessions: notes from a child; a photo of an old friend; a bracelet a parent gave us for 10th birthday. 

And of course there are the many things that will take more time and effort to replace or repair than we expect - deeds, birth certificates, documents, heck - Christmas card lists!

Even things you rarely use like owner's manuals and warranties you don't think about until you need them, and then are grateful you stowed in the "usual spot." 

On top of it all, these days a great deal of our "lives" are in digital format - contacts, email exchanges, business, documentation, entertainment, access to a wide variety of platforms - much of our lives are now contained in the bits and bytes of the data we store and call upon daily to go about our day.

That is to say: while much of the data we generate is important, still more of it is treasured by us not so much for its utility as for the history it provides. Protecting it matters from both a “business” perspective, and a personal one.

We typically try to guard that data with good practices for data security: don't share passwords; have second or even third copies of drives containing sensitive data; use unique, strong passwords; encrypt and secure valuable data; use multi-factor authentication. And while all these practices are good, this is also a good time to remind you that there should also be a way should anything happen to you for your trusted others to gain access to highly secure data that will be needed for them to handle business for you should you become unable for whatever reason. 

But even with all that in place it's typically necessary to store data locally for your own access at any time - including when the Internet isn't accessible - and on a cloud server, like OneDrive or Google, or some other platform so that it is accessible if the local drive isn't, and will be backed up should the local drive fail.

To that end, we often think about things like multiple copies of a physical drive on the (inevitable) chance that it will fail, or the cloud plus physical drive combination, but don't often think about the other possibilities when it comes to good data management - things like not keeping the data in synch, or what happens if a physical disaster like a fire or flood destroys the local physical data?

A couple of additional recommendations for data security and backup:

Use the 3-2-1 Backup Rule: Maintain three total copies of your data: two on different storage media (e.g., an external hard drive and a local server), and one offsite (e.g., a secured cloud service). Some experts recommend, depending up on the sensitivity of your data even keeping a copy of all data secure in a safe deposit box - especially if you have one already for purposes of maintaining important documents or other items of value. While this entire step is critical, the primary take-away here that most of us will minimize: do make and secure physical copies of critical data that will be stored in a location safe from local hazard. 

Standardize File Naming: Use clear, consistent naming conventions that include dates, project names, and versions to easily search and sort files. I find dates in file names to be particularly useful for locating the exact item I'm looking for, as well as sub-folders to help me hone in on a particular target file.

Regular Digital Decluttering: Set a schedule to review, archive, or securely delete outdated files and emails so information does not pile up unmanaged. This step is critical, and one most of us will overlook. Two things are important here: making sure the complete set of folders and files is on all storage media, and making sure old, outdated, and useless data is purged so that finding a particular item isn't quite so onerous. 

One other practice that has helped this data collector out on many occasions is a log of what is on a given drive. This can be maintained as another file and/or as a paper copy. This log just identifies the contents of a particular drive or folder, again with the idea being make it easier on you, or others as necessary, to find a particular item in what now amounts to massive amounts of data that we all create in simply going about our daily lives.