When we speak about backups it’s usually in the context of business, tied in with disaster recovery and continuity plans. I think we tend to overlook the importance of backups for our own personal data and services. From precious family photos and videos, to important documents and financial records, our digital devices store a wealth of information that is essential to our daily lives. Online services also hold a lot of our information and media, how often have you backed up your Facebook or Twitter account?

However, the risk of losing this valuable data is just as likely, with the same common threats of hardware failure, software corruption, cyber attacks, and natural disasters. Just like in business, we should ensure that valuable personal information is safe and easily accessible in the event of an unexpected loss. 

Benefits of Backing Up Your Personal Data:

1. Protection against data loss: Data loss can be a devastating experience, especially if it’s information that you can’t easily replace. By backing up your personal data, you can ensure that you have a copy of your valuable information in case anything happens to your device or the service holding the information. 
2. Peace of mind: Knowing that your important information is safe and secure can provide you with peace of mind. With regular backups, you can rest easy knowing that your data is protected and that you can easily access it if needed.
3. Ransomware payments: In the world of ransomware, having a separate backup may avoid the requirement or threat of having to pay a ransom on an affected device. 

Easy Ways to Back Up Your Personal Data:

1. External hard drives: External hard drives are a simple and affordable way to back up your personal data. Simply connect the drive to your computer, copy your important files onto it, and store the drive in a safe place.
2. Use the GDPR and data protection tools for online services: Many services now provide a way to request all your data from the service, and this will oftentimes include a full export of posts, images, video, messages and more. This is a great way to quickly backup a few of your services from time to time – at the very least take a backup using this method now, and then repeat depending on how often you use the service. Some quick links:
   • Request Facebook export
   • Request Twitter export
   • Request Google account export
3. Cloud storage: Cloud storage services such as Google Drive, iCloud, and OneDrive are an easy and convenient way to store your personal data in the cloud. Make use of automatic sync tools to keep a copy of your documents or camera roll away from the main device. 
4. Backup services: Services such as Backblaze offer an affordable and automated way to create a backup of your computers. For mobile, there are separate services available, and at the very least you should setup the cloud-based backup provided by your phone manufacturer, such as iCloud, Samsung Smart Switch or Google One.

When choosing how to apply the methods above, consider following the 3-2-1 backup principal, which is three copies of the same data, across two different storage types and one of those should be in a different location. For example, you have a photo on your iPhone that you’d like to keep safe. The three copies are on your phone, a recent phone backup on your laptop and on the continuous iCloud photos backup. You have already got the photo on two separate types of storage (the phone and the laptop) and the iCloud backup ticks off the off-site location. 3-2-1 methodology is more than apt for a home setup in most cases.

The key is to keep it fairly simple, stay on top of it and check the backups are working from time-to-time.

Backing up your personal data is a critical step in protecting your valuable information from data loss. With the benefits of increased protection, peace of mind, and better overall protection. Whatever methods you use, the important thing is to take action and start backing up your personal data today.