5 Tips to Avoid Catastrophic Data Loss

By Matt Brennan

There’s a feeling of devastation in the moments after you realize you’ve suffered a significant data loss. When you lose valuable information that your business depends on, it can cripple your ability to function. In extreme cases, it can force a company out of business.

Thankfully, there are steps that can be taken to reduce the likelihood of data loss crippling your organization. With some simple steps, you can avoid data loss altogether, or at the minimum, reduce its impact.

Always Back Up Your Data

Backing up your data on a consistent, regular basis is key to avoiding a catastrophic data loss. This is the act of keeping a copy of your original data on a separate disk media. USB drives, removable hard drives, and cloud storage all offer companies a means to back their data up. If the data is critical to your organization, off-site backups may be the way to go.

Backing up data is an act that may require some discipline. You might have to stop working for long enough to make these backups. But it is an act you won’t regret in a worst-case-scenario.

Complete Your Software Updates

The purpose of software updates is often to protect your system from specific vulnerabilities. Many of these perspective vulnerabilities can be damaging to your data. This is why it’s important to keep up with updates as you are notified. You can also run system checks to determine what software has available updates.

Anti-Virus Software is Critical

It’s important to be proactive in protecting your computer from malicious viruses, malware, trojans, and other problems. When viruses operate in the background they can change or delete much-needed data, causing any number of significant problems. A strong anti-virus program with firewalls can help prevent the spread of viruses through the internet. They offer added levels of security and decrease your vulnerability.

Run Disk Defragmentation Programs

As more programs are used, it can cause an internal mess on the back end of your computer’s hard drive. Disk defragmentation cleans up temporary and unused files. It creates a clean working environment that is less stressful to your machine. This ensures data is organized in a more contiguous manner, that is easier to access in the event of a recovery. It’s recommended to run this every few months.

Practice Good Usage Habits

Protect your network from unknown users. It’s the best way to prevent someone with malicious intent from getting in. When you receive emails with attachments from unknown users, it’s best to ignore them. Make sure that your firewalls are set to higher standards.

Past that, it’s important to continuously save your documents as you make changes to them. This prevents data loss if an application unexpectedly quits.

Prevent a Worst-Case Scenario

As technologies progress, so do the many ways that companies can lose their data. The truth is that many of the crises’ that data recovery companies respond to are preventable. Implementing some of the above tips can help you to safeguard data.