It's All In The Cloud, So I'm Good. Right?
Have you ever opened up your laptop to finish working on that document you had almost completed the night before, only to find the changes you had made gone? I have, and I do IT for a living. After a couple of minutes of wondering why in the heck last night’s edits are there anymore, I decide that my only recourse is to start over. It’s frustrating, but, whatever. (sigh.)
Now imagine that same scenario, except everything is gone. It happens, and it’s never pleasant. A lot of folks I talk to feel that as long as they have everything backed up to the cloud, they’re good. So…, is that true?
You’ve probably heard this unappealing answer from me before but, it really depends. Let’s start with a few definitions for what these words mean when we are talking about your files and software:
- Sync: This term came into popular use when cloud data storage became cheap enough to use. What happens with sync services is that every time you save a document on your computer, a copy gets saved in the cloud. That means if you create a new document, you have two copies, one on your computer, and one in the cloud. That can also mean if you delete a document, it gets deleted in two places. We’ll come back to that important point later.
- Backup: Backups are a snapshot of some portion of the files and programs stored on your computer at a specific point in time. Usually, this is done by a piece of software that will create a backup daily, which allows you to go back and retrieve a file if it disappears from your system for some reason (it happens). If you make a backup of an entire hard drive, you’ve done a special type of backup called an “image”.
- Restore: Restore is the process of retrieving information from a backup. Let’s say you leave work on Tuesday and come back on Wednesday to find that the office suite above you flooded and your computer is underneath a waterfall (it happens). In this particular scenario, either a backup or sync will help you get your documents back, but a backup will be much faster, and if you have a full image of your hard disk you may not even need to reload all of your software.
The place where Syncs can fail you is if you delete a file you did not mean to. Since deleting a synced file also deletes the file from the cloud, it may be gone for good once deleted. Making sure you have the right setup to ensure that your data is protected is not that hard, but it is important.
The gold standard of data protection is setting up a backup system that is 100% separate from the rest of your system. That way, even in the worst case scenario of someone hacking your system and encrypting or deleting your data, you have a way to get everything back.
If you’re not sure whether or not your data security plan is up to speed, schedule a free consultation with me and let’s talk it over.