How are you protecting your memories?

According to a recent Acronis survey, a third of us have experienced some sort of data loss. However, 22% of us don’t backup our computers or mobile phones, at all. Many of us don’t what a backup is and why is it so important.

In March we all celebrate the World Backup day, a global initiative to educate families about the increasing role of data in our lives. A backup is a second copy of all your important files — your family photos, home videos, documents, medical records, tax returns.

We’ve all thought about what we’d grab from our house in case of a fire or natural disaster: photos, videos, important documents, and jewellery are probably at the top of your list. These physical objects are something we value a lot. The things we touch, see and feel everyday become an important part of our lives – so it’s natural to want to protect them.

Our digital data holds the same value. Thousands of pictures and videos of your family and loved ones, selfies with children and grandchildren, precious personal files and information, and important work now live in digital form on our mobile phones, tablets, and desktop and laptop computers. Today, our data is our life.

Accidents, device loss, and theft can make all that data – or rather your digital life – go away forever. An upgrade gone awry, someone stealing your phone, leaving your phone behind at a cricket game, spilling a cup of coffee onto your keyboard, or your phone taking a swim at the beach – the ways to lose your data are countless.

How to protect your valuable data?

Although you can’t always prevent the loss of physical objects, you can protect your digital life using new advances in cloud backup solutions that can protect not just pictures and videos – but content on your mobile devices and everything on Macs and PCs. So, if something does go wrong, you can immediately restore your precious pictures, videos, documents, applications, passwords, settings, contacts, events – and even an entire computer – all with the push of a button.

If you are looking to truly protect all your data you need to think about using the right backup solution or product – here are the key questions to ask:

• Does it protect data on mobile devices? – 39% of us have more than five devices. Your backup solution should provide support for the most popular devices in use today, including for Android, iPhone, and iPad devices, and Windows devices.
• Can you manage it all in one place? – Protecting your data with backup technology means it has to be easy-to-use – especially in today’s multi-device world. You should be able to manage the backup and recovery of multiple devices from one single place, online, and be able restore them from anywhere.
• Will your data be stored locally and “in the cloud”? – Complete data protection requires a dual approach: backup to the cloud and locally on a drive or hard disk. Data shouldn’t just be stored on devices or just in the cloud, it needs to be backed up both locally and to the cloud with no restrictions on sizes and types of files that can be backed up.

So how much is your digital life worth? $50, $100, $500, $1,000, more? Acronis survey found that most people think their personal data is worth $1,000 or more, and they are willing to pay that amount or more to recover their data if it’s lost. That’s far more than what today’s best backup solutions cost, and that’s not even considering the frustration and heartache of losing data with sentimental value.

When it comes to losing your precious data and digital memories – it’s not if, but when. It will happen. Don’t wait until it’s too late.

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