Today is the third annual World Backup Day, devised by Youngstown State University student Ismail Jadun to occur the day before 1 April, reminding us all not to be a fool and to back-up our files.
“I’m thrilled with the response to World Backup Day, and I hope it’s made a difference in people’s lives,” said Jadun of his enduring ‘holiday’. “We all know someone who has lost critical data, whether it was their videos, photos, music, reports, or personal stuff. Hopefully, this day will make everyone think about their situation, learn about the various storage options and get their files backed up.”
According to WorldBackupDay.com, mechanical hard drives can fail at an annual rate of 3pc – a rate that increases as the drive gets older. While lost data can sometimes be recovered, the best way to avoid the potentially devastating loss of data is simply to back it up.
The best back-up system is easy to set-up and, once enabled, automatic. There are different options available to users, be they local back-up, off-site back-up or cloud back-up, and Jadun recommends that users have such a system in place for all of their devices, be it their computer, smartphone, tablet, or media player.
Memryz are made of discs
It’s easy to forget what some of the files we have stored on these devices really mean to us. “Calling it data is distancing ourselves from what this information actually is; our most precious memories, from photos of our children, wedding videos, school projects, the kind of things which are irreplaceable,” said Jeremy Kaj, founder of UK-based cloud back-up service and data conversion site Memryz, which launches today.
Back-up services can even be utilised for our non-digital mementos. Memryz recently conducted a survey of 2,500 internet users in partnership with Google and discovered that 64.7pc had printed photos and hard-copy videos that would be irreplaceable if lost or damaged. “World Backup Day shouldn’t just get people thinking about backing up their computers,” said Kai. “There is most likely a box somewhere in each of our homes of old printed photos and videos, which are equally if not more fragile and need backing up too.”
