For the most part they are more reliable, however…

People are storing more and more data on their computers and computers are becoming a more integral part of their lives.

When these computers become unavailable for whatever reason the effect is more noticeable than it was a few years ago.

This month I have had two machines from two completely separate people with exactly the same problem. Their hard disk has failed and they have no backup. This is very costly to resolve and requires the failed disk to be shipped out for specialist attention costing several hundreds of pounds. Five years ago not many people would have bothered with this for the simple reason, computers were not powerful enough or could not hold enough information to make the loss to painful.

Nowadays your entire life is being stored on your computer in the form of irreplaceable pictures, video's, emails and documents and the loss of such material is not a pleasant experience.

I therefore remind all of you that you should backup your data regularly, you should check the backup to make sure it is complete and you should store it in a safe place.

There are various solutions available for backing up including USB memory sticks, CD and DVD disks and my personal preference an external hard disk. If your pc or laptop is more than two or three years old you consider having your hard disk upgraded. This will increase the performance of your computer and will allow you to 'recycle' your old hard disk as a backup disk. This is not a painful job and in most cases will cost less than £100.

If you need to discuss a practical solution to backing up your data please contact me via email.

Thanks
Gavin