Backup resolutions

We’re a week into the New Year, most of us are back at the office, and we’ve dug out from the backlogs of emails we put off right before Christmas. So now it’s time to really think about what habits we’re going to change now that it’s 2012. 

Here’s a suggestion: examine your data protection policies and firm them up a bit. If you’re not backing up, start. If you’re backing up once a week, make it twice. If you’re only keeping a local copy, add some redundancy with cloud backup.

Make it a resolution to beef up your data security and storage strategies for 2012. It doesn’t take too much effort – change the backup schedule, or add a destination, or download the program in the first place. Set it up once and forget about it. But do it now so you’re not caught someday without the database you’ve been working on.

I find it hard to believe that anybody out there hasn’t experienced data loss of some sort, but there’s a huge group of people who still don’t protect themselves. Once it’s gone, it’s gone, folks, so spend ten minutes right now configuring a backup. Ten bucks a month (a fraction of your cable bill) will buy you a whole heap of storage space with most vendors, so pick one you like and set it up.

Even after you’ve quit on your other New Year’s resolutions, let this one hang in there.