Data Loss and How to Prevent it

My most recent customer has experienced the heartache that can be caused by a simple hard drive failure. Everything from license keys, tax files, personal pictures, and so much more are gone due to irreversible mechanical failure on a hard drive. One way around most mechanical failures in hard drives is to invest in a SSD (Solid State Drive) vs. the traditional HDD (Hard Disk Drive) which has moving parts that can be easily damaged just through the course of the drives lifetime. A SSD is not only going to be much faster and reliable but also smaller and more quiet (and more $$$ 😖); think of an SSD as your handy flash drive that your computer uses as a primary storage space.

Although sometimes tedious, especially when having to keep track of the files stored on cameras, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, etc., there are (free) tools out there that help streamline the process. Making sure all of your files are safe on a secondary media device can be the easy part with the difficult part sometimes being to avoid duplicates that will just consume unnecessary space as well as complicate locating your files. I've personally used a freeware application called FreeFileSync for years and have no complaints. For some, there may be an initial learning curve to help setup the data sync job but after that it is just a matter of a few mouse clicks that enable FreeFileSync to scan both the source and target sides to ensure no duplicates are being transferred over.

Are you reading this and it is too late? 15 duplicate .jpeg files or J-Bieb's on repeat across all hard drives? That is OK too! Another freeware application dupeGuru will scan your target location and then proceed to remove all duplicate files saving you hours of tedious clean up. "It can scan either filenames or contents. The filename scan features a fuzzy matching algorithm that can find duplicate filenames even when they are not exactly the same".

These two applications are time savers for me and great to have in anyone's toolkit. However, these do not resolve the immediate problem of data loss. In the majority of cases, the only way to avoid data loss is through a means of preventative maintenance. If you failed to take action before your PC tower is halfway underwater because of a burst pipe, sorry charlie, but your chances of reviving that drive are slim (although you do have some unconventional options).

To make this as clear as mud - there are several applications to help speed the backup process up and many external hard drives may include them on the drive for you to install and take advantage of. Norton Antivirus (free with Comcast Internet) includes a backup scheduler that allows you to manually select the directories needed to be backed up and you can even use a flash drive to keep cost down.

Be sure this doesn't happen to you! Ask me if you have questions on automatic backups to local or network storage. There are also several Cloud storage offerings with free GB of space which is sometimes all you need for the super important stuff! 😉

#harddrive #externalstorage #backup #solidstatedrive #dataprotection #disasterrecovery