You may have heard many times (or maybe not, but that’s what we’re here for) about backups. Quizá pienses que eso son cosas tecnológicas muy complejas que solo hacen los bancos y las grandes multinacionales.
That you, as a humble user of a cell phone and a computer, don’t have to worry about it.
You may even have a small business and feel that backups are too big for you and unnecessary.
Today we are going to teach you in a simple and clear way (without technical terms or strange words) what backups are and in which cases it is important to make them.
What is a backup?
Imagine a very valuable document that you don’t want to lose or have badly damaged.
The deed to your new home, for example.
You know that at any time you can go to the notary and request a duplicate of the same, or maybe even do it right now to have two copies, which is always better than one.
You may store them in different places in case a fire, theft or some other event causes them to disappear.
Very good, you have been a cautious and cautious person.
So basically this is a backup.
A backup copy
is a duplicate of all information
and the data it stores
your computer, smartphone, tablet, etc.
Thanks to this duplicate, you can be much more relaxed knowing that, if something happens, you will still have access to the information.
What situations can a backup save you from?
These are some of the cases in which having taken the precaution of having an updated backup can save you from losing all your data:
- Sudden failure of your device: it has died and there is no way to turn it on.
- Damage to your computer or cell phone due to an accident: you dropped matcha tea on it.
- Cyber attack: even the COVID vaccine has not worked, you have been infected with a virus.
- Accidental deletion: you lost your finger and deleted everything.
In all of these situations, a backup can get your face past this one:
To this one:
Which device can you back up to?
Backup copies are not just a matter of large multinational servers.
If you are an individual:
You must make a backup copy to:
- Your smartphone (I’m sure your whole life goes on that little device).
- Your personal laptop data (the selfies for which you have risked your physical integrity).
- The hard drive of your desktop computer (tax returns from the last decade do not save themselves).
- Your tablet (if you use it for more than just watching YouTube videos).
- Etc.
If you are a business (even if it is small):
You must make a backup copy to:
- The database of your clients (with what it has cost you to grow it).
- Turnover for the last 5 years (for you and for the tax authorities).
- All those documents without which you cannot work (there is nothing worse than not being able to move forward because the data is inaccessible).
You may have all this information stored on one computer, on several or on an external server with which the entire team of your company works.
In any case, frequent backups can save you from more than one annoyance (and even an administrative sanction).
Where to make a backup copy
There are different places where you can save that “duplicate” of your data that we call backup.
Local backup
It is about the backup that we do on a hard drive or external server that is located in the same place as our device.
For example, when we copy all the photos from our cell phone to the computer or to a USB, we would be making a local backup of our images.
The advantage of this type of backup is that, since you do not need the Internet, you will be able to recover your data quickly.
The drawback is that you will only be able to recover them when you are in the place where the external hard drive is located.
This means that if you take your laptop with you on vacation in the Bahamas and lose all your data there, you will have to wait until you return home (or to your company) to recover it.
(I also tell you that if you start working on the computer in the Bahamas, that’s enough for you).
In addition, by having the primary device and the backup location in the same place, in the event of a catastrophe at your home or business (a fire, for example), you can lose both your computer and the offsite backup.
This means that you would be irretrievably left without your data.
(It may seem unlikely, but tell that to the folks at Windsor Tower).
Cloud backup
The cloud is the remote servers that different companies make available to users.
These servers are accessed through the Internet.
The advantage of this backup system is that by having your data hosted on the Internet, you can access it from any device, anywhere.
Also, by being in a different place than the device, you will not lose your data in case of fire, theft or other catastrophe.
Another factor to highlight is that in most cases you can schedule backups to be done automatically, so you will not have to be aware of doing it manually.
The disadvantage of cloud backups is that, since they require an Internet connection, you will not be able to access your data if you do not have one at that moment.
In addition, many times these servers will be paid (especially if you have a large amount of data that requires a lot of capacity in the cloud).
Another important issue is where we are uploading our data.
We usually trust major companies like Google, Microsoft, Dropbox, etc.
But it is possible that due to a billing failure or misconfiguration we may lose access to them.
Also, unless you pay a large sum of money per month, the technical support sometimes leaves a lot to be desired.
Conclusion
Making frequent backups of your devices will help you rest easy knowing that your data is safe and will be your lifeline when something goes wrong with your data.
We recommend that you read our article What is the best backup system? where we help you choose the best method and strategy to follow.
Laby has its own laboratory and more than 10 years of experience.
And if the worst happens and you haven’t done your homework, you can always come to us. As a company specialized in data recovery, we can “revive” your data in our laboratory.
