Have a Backup Plan

Backing up data is one of the most important tasks most people neglect until it is too late. As a law student, having a backup system in place should be one of the first tasks completed upon starting Law School. Data loss can occur in many ways. A physical hard drive failure is the most common. Hard drives have expiration dates and do not last forever. While most people assume their laptop is new and the hard drive won’t crash, this isn’t always the case. Hard drives can fail gradually causing a computer to lock up periodically or perform poorly; a hard drive can also fail suddenly without any warnings. A power failure or spike as well as viruses can also cause data loss.

Data recovery isn’t always successful. So why do most people not have a backup plan? They don’t think about it because they believe it won’t happen to them. Why take the risk? Backing up data is easy.

Data can be copied onto an external drive or synced with an online service. Some examples of free online services are DropBox and Syncplicity, each offering free online storage. These services automatically backup your data without you thinking about it. I encourage you to find a backup solution which best suits you and stick to it.

Not sure what you would need to backup? What about pictures, music, notes, address book, or bookmarks? If you have a lot of pictures and music, it might be best to back those up on an external device and maybe use an online service to backup your notes. Notes and school assignments are always being changed and need to be backed up frequently. The online service automates this process. Having a backup means your data is in two places. Keeping all of your data on just one external drive means you do not have a backup.

Feel free to contact Gannon Minnick or Ron Lagos if you have any additional questions.