Happy World Backup Day! Are you backed up? If not, you should be! And if you are backing up, now’s the time to check to make sure your backup is doing what it’s supposed to be doing. On this day, we thought we’d offer a few backup pointers to make sure you’re on the right track.
World Backup Day was thought up a few years ago to help remind us that backing up your data is important. While we at Backblaze didn’t have anything to do with its creation, it’s an idea that we certainly support. Because every day is World Backup Day at Backblaze.
1. Be Wary of New Threats
Even if you regularly back up your computer, problems can stop you in your tracks. Malware and ransomware are prominent issues. Anti-virus and anti-malware software apps don’t always detect new exploits in a timely fashion.
Malware infection symptoms range from the annoying—browser redirects, crashes, and slowdowns—to the downright extortionate, like our own Elli’s experience with ransomware.
Elli was protected with a Backblaze backup. The alternative would have been to either lose data or pay off ransomware hackers—either way, not a pretty picture.
2. Keep Your Backups Close
Don’t make your backup strategy dependent on a single point of failure. Hedge your bets by having more than one backup to restore from in the event of an emergency.
One solution is to keep a local backup copy on hand and another one off-site. Backblaze makes it easy with our unlimited, unthrottled cloud backup service available for one low price—just $5 per month.
Apple’s Time Machine, Microsoft’s Windows Backup, and many other apps let you create a local backup copy you can restore from quickly and easily. If anything goes wrong with that backup, or if you need to access your backup files when you’re away from your computer, you can restore from your cloud backup.
It’s part of the 3-2-1 backup strategy, which we think is a good start to make sure your data is safe.
3. Check Your Backup
If you already back up your computer, terrific. World Backup Day is just one day a year, but hopefully your backups happen more frequently. Take some time today to check your backup. Make sure the files you need are where they’re supposed to be.
Testing your backups should be an essential part of your overall backup strategy. Make sure you’re backing up what you need to. Also make sure the backups themselves work as they’re supposed to, by restoring files and checking them. A practical benefit of doing this is to gain familiarity with the process. That way, you’ll be experienced with what to do when it matters.
With Backblaze, it takes only a few mouse clicks to confirm your files are backed up.
Need more guidance to test your backups? We have you covered: Read up on
how to test your backup.
4. Keep up to Date on Backup Best Practices
Don’t be an April Fool. Despite the ubiquity of digital devices in our life, we’re complacent about the safety of our data. About a third of us have never backed up our computer.
If you’re in that group, there are ways to keep your Mac or PC data safe. Visit our Computer Backup Guide to learn more. We’ll help you break down the why, what, and how of computer backups.
If you already use Backblaze, make sure to catch up on our best practices, like testing the Backblaze backup service, using appropriate security measures, and restoring data to test integrity.
If you have ideas about backup practices or questions you’d like help with, join the discussion!
