Whoever you are or wherever you are, chances are you’ll have dealt with electronic files in some form or another. This could be something as simple as a few photographs saved on your home laptop or even an entire catalogue of contacts on your work computer. Bottom line is, we rely on electronic files a fair amount in everyday life and perhaps many of us might even take it for granted. Before we venture into the realm of how we can store our data, we need to discuss what sort of data one might keep.
Let’s start simple. Media files such as videos, images and music I’m sure you’re all familiar with;whether you’re saving old videos from your video camera in a MP4 format or compiling together a list of your favourite MP3 songs. Text documents also tend to be of frequent use for users – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, NotePad – all programs we use and save file through to name a few. Then of course you have more precious data such as password information or emails.
With data piling up every single day in household PCs and at work, what measures can we take to keep it all safe? Something as simple as a spare hard drive to back up data is an excellent way to do this. Not only is it relatively easy to implement, but hard drive sizes have become so large now that you’ll often have more space than you’ll ever need. Then of course you have the newer solution of Cloud saving. While it might seem scary with the idea of all your data being out there in “The Cloud”, it is in essence a digital hard drive which can be handily accessed from anywhere. Also, unlike a physical hard drive it cannot succumb to physical damage.
Data loss can occur in many ways; whether it’s something as simple as accidental deletion, power failure and hard drive failure, or something a little more complex like bugs in your software, hacking, viruses and data corruption. Some are unexpected and unavoidable and some can happen due to our own actions. File corruption for example can stem from incomplete or excessive copying while events such as power cuts are out of our hands entirely.
Recovering your important files is no laughing matter and should be taken seriously – after all we are talking about data that could possibly lead to devastating consequences should it be permanently gone. Imagine hours upon hours of work files gone; or even years of home family movies corrupted. To be extra safe, it is best that file recovery is left to the professionals so as not to risk completely losing all our files in cases such as data corruption.
Believe it or not there have been situations where recovery specialists have recovered data from hard drives that have been almost completely destroyed in an explosion or other catastrophe. While those circumstance mentioned here are a little more extreme than those you might find yourself in, it does give you an idea of how talented and helpful a professional file recovery service can be.It seems obvious but every file we store has some sort of importance and it is essential that we recognise how to both manage and back them up.
