tosh consulting

After employees, the next most valuable item in your office is your data. The blood, sweat and tears of all your toil. Unfortunately it’s not a question of if your computer will crash, but when. Regardless of whether you use Vista, XP, Apple, or Linux here are three steps you can take today to minimize your technology headaches tomorrow.

Data Backup
Data backup used to involve awkward expensive SCSI tape drives. Now it’s much easier to maintain a backup with external hard drives. One popular brand is Maxtor. Maxtor’s One Touch drives also include software to automate the entire backup process. Don’t forget to buy two hard drives. This way you can keep one in the office and the other off site (in case of theft, fire, or other disaster). You can either rotate your drives on a daily or weekly basis.

Battery Backup
Although you may think a power strip can protect your computer, think again. In addition to power spikes, many hard drives are damaged by ‘brown outs’. This is when electrical power dips below the optimum range for your computer. Your best bet is purchase a battery backup. A popular brand is APC and usually ranges from $80 to $120 (depending on the computer you use). Also, remember to only plug your computer, monitor and external drive into your backup.

Archiving
Long term it’s important to burn older data onto DVDs. You will want to burn at least 2 copies since DVDs can be lost or damaged. Also remember to keep one set off site.

If you have any other IT questions, you can contact Kevin Livingston at kevin@toshconsulting.com.