Talking to your family can be hard. Especially when it comes to topics that are as uncomfortable as backups. Today, March 31st, is World Backup Day, and we want to reduce the number of April Fools this year by making sure everyone is backed up. Do your family and friends have a good backup strategy in place? If not, we have a few different approaches you can take when broaching the conversation and some key concepts that will arm you with the knowledge to fight backup negligence, one friend and family member at a time.
The Subtle Nudge
Sometimes a simple reminder is the easiest way to go. Here are a couple of simple prompts that you might want to utilize if you think a simple reminder might do the trick:
- Fun fact: Did you know that today is World Backup Day? You have a backup right? I use Backblaze, and it’s pretty great.
- Don’t be an April Fool, back up your data! Today is World Backup Day, and Backblaze is a great service if you aren’t using one.
- Backblaze is a great service for backing up your computer, and it’s World Backup Day today, so you know what to do.
- I lost my data once. It was horrible. Don’t be like me—use Backblaze. (Oh, you’ve never lost data? Eh. A little white lie never hurt anyone when it comes to backing up.)
Oh, and don’t forget to send them to Backblaze.com!
The Intervention
Sometimes a simple nudge just won’t suffice and you need to really sit someone down and explain things to them. If that happens, we have a few different talking points that you may want to utilize about the benefits of backing up online:
- Think of backing up as insurance for your data. In case something happens to the computer you are using, your data can still be protected.
- If you have an online backup, all the data that’s backed up from your computer is available online, so you can access it even if your computer is offline, lost, or stolen.
- Online backup services like Backblaze have mobile apps that allow you to access your backed up data on the go, from anywhere you have an internet connection.
- Ransomware is on the rise, and having an off-site backup like Backblaze can help you recover from a malicious attack because your data will still be intact elsewhere, even if your computer is infected with ransomware or malware.
Full-on Family IT Management
Taking matters into your own hands is also an option. With Backblaze, our Groups feature allows you to take control and get your family backed up. Creating a Group that you manage is a piece of cake:
- Log in to www.backblaze.com.
- Go into your Account Settings and enable Business Groups.
- Create a Group (you can find instructions here).
- Invite your family to the Group.
- Make sure they install the Backblaze service on their computer (That’s the only manual step on their machine.) and we’ll handle the rest!
One thing to note is that your Group can be managed or unmanaged. In an unmanaged Group, people will individually create Backblaze accounts and will be able to recover data on their own without the Group manager being able to access it. In a managed Group, both the individual and the Group manager would be able to access and recover data from the backed up accounts!
Knowledge Is Power
Before going into these conversations, it’s also important to be prepared with the cold hard facts about backing up and best practices in general. Below, we’ve listed a few things that are important to know and could be helpful in the discussions above:
Refer-a-friend
Backblaze has a refer-a-friend program that gives you a free month of backup for every person you refer who signs up for an account and purchases a license. Plus, they also get a month for free—this is a great way to get your friends and family started!
The 3-2-1 Backup Strategy
This is a concept that we wholeheartedly love at Backblaze and have written a lot about. The gist is that everyone should have at least three copies of their data: two on-site and one off-site. The on-site copy can include the original, but make sure that the second copy is on a different medium like an external hard drive. The off-site copy should be in an accessible location, ideally using a cloud-based system like Backblaze.
Extended Version History
Many services that sync your data have limited retention history, so if you remove or change something on your computer, it’ll also get removed or changed in other locations as well. Backblaze has 30 days of version history by default, but we offer Extended Version History for one year or forever in order to keep your data backed up for longer, just in case!
Password Best Practices
This is a general internet tip, but make sure that you are using different passwords for every website or service that you have an account with. This can absolutely get unruly, and so we recommend using a password manager like BitWarden, LastPass, or 1Password. They’re all great and can help you keep things organized and secure.
Two-factor Verification
Having strong passwords is a great first step to internet and account security. The next best thing to do is to enable two-factor verification. The most common form of doing this is with time-based, one-time passwords (ToTP). They typically live inside of apps (like the password managers above) or with dedicated ones like Google Authenticate. Another option is to use your phone number and get SMS-delivered ToTP, but that’s considered less secure since phone numbers can be spoofed.
Hopefully this overview of how to talk to your friends and family about backing up for World Backup Day was helpful, and maybe you learned something new in the process! If you’ve had this “talk” before and have an interesting angle that worked to get folks across the finish line and backing up, let us know in the comments below!
