Monday, April 1, 2019

Safeguard Your Data –Part 3



If you missed part 1 & 2 of this article you will find them on this Blog.

Photos
The loss of photos can be heartbreaking so taking some time to ensure they are backed up securely is a good investment of your time. The problems I see most often with customers are: Lack of a clear understanding of Cloud backup options and/or lack of understanding on how to effectively backup to either the Cloud or a local device. The other issue of course is finding the time in busy schedules.

As we can all be accused of being a bit snap happy it is not unusual to accumulate a large amount of photos consuming a good whack of space. 

YouTube contains a myriad of HOW TO tutorials on how to backup data from a variety of devices.

This YouTube tutorial  https://youtu.be/Iw-EvM6gLBA explaining how to backup your windows 10 computer to a local device was easy to understand and follow.

If you just want to backup your photos, and providing your photos don’t take up more than 64 gigabytes, you can use a usb memory stick. After 64 gigabyte usb memory stick prices start to creep nearer the cost of a 1 Terabyte usb hard drive. If you want to backup your entire computer then an external usb drive is the recommended option. 

There are a myriad of free and buyable backup apps that allow you to store multiple copies of you data on different devices or locations. At the bottom of this article I’ve listed prices for backup devices from a few Irish sources.

The Two Copy Rule
 2019 marks my 38th year in technology. During those years I’ve seen countless examples where technicians including myself fell victim to the three monkeys of disaster (hubris, arrogance, and assumption). It’s nothing new and as we all know part of the human condition. In 2019 I must unfortunately report the three monkeys continue to prosper. Facebook has just admitted to storing hundreds of millions of passwords in plain text but has assured us that they were not accessible by anyone outside of Facebook except for some 2,000 engineers and developers. As of January 2018 facebook employed some 35,587 people.  If you wish to defend yourself from becoming a victim always maintain at least two independent copies of your valuable data on two independent devices AND ensure these devices are securely stored. Take ownership of backing up your data and hopefully you will never need to use it.

Backup Device Prices

Usb Memory Sticks
Argos -SanDisk Ultra Fit 130MB/s USB 3.1 Flash Drive - 64GB  -  €18.99
Harvey Norman Verbatim USB 2.0 Store N Go Slider 64GB Black  €19.95 
MemoryC Online retailer with offices in Celbridge Co Kildare
64GB Kingston DataTraveler USB3.1 Flash Drive €14.75 plus shipping

Usb Hard Drives
Argos Maxtor M3 1TB External Portable Hard Drive €59.99
Harvey Norman ADATA HV300 Hard Drive | 1TB | Black € 59.90
MemoryC 1TB AData HV620S USB3.1 Portable Hard Drive Black €58.43 plus shipping.

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