Our daily lives are tied to the digital world. Where once we had physical photos, CDs, books and files we now generate and buy the virtual equivalents. We store them on our electronic devices and assume that they will last forever in their digital homes, never needing to use data recovery to restore our virtual assets. But do they last forever?

Data Recovery when Computers Breakdown

A home computer can at any time be holding years of personal information and photos. Items that are irreplaceable to you. How long have you had your computer? The older a machine the greater the chance it will breakdown. When it does break you can feel you have lost part of who you are, this can be a scary time especially if you don’t have a backup. Try and stay calm and read this article from Cheeky Munkey about how to recover data from the hard drive within your computer.

Avoid Hard Drive Data Recovery with Backups

Never get to the point where you need to recover lost files. Most companies that deal with data will have multiple copies of it. Three copies of any file is considered the minimum required. Just as the hip-hop group De La Soul thought that three was The Magic Number you can also use three as the magic number to prevent the need for data recovery.

1. The original.
2. A local copy on transportable media (e.g. USB drive, external hard drive).
3. An off site copy (e.g. cloud storage or on media stored elsewhere, such as a family members house).

Backups are your files insurance policy for when your computer breaks down or is lost. The Internet has made preserving copies of files easier with services like Apple’s iCloud, Microsoft’s OneDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox where saving to a local folder automatically generates a remote copy. But don’t forget your own local copy on portable media. Ultimately the Internet is run by businesses and businesses have been known to shut off services. So remember your three golden backups for all your content.