The Crash Is Coming - Is Your Information Insured?

I often wonder why people don't take computer backup as seriously as I do. I spend between two and six hours working in front of my computer every day. I know people who spend their entire work day in front of one. Some of those same people backup rarely, if ever. I bet you're one of them. So imagine if your computer goes down and your information is lost. How many days would it take for you to recreate your work? And how much money would you lose as a result? What if that work is creative, and was done during a moment of clarity that you just can't get back. And if you can't recreate your work, you'll have to pay someone to recover it. Even if it's something simple, it can cost hundreds - if not thousands - of dollars, and the recovery may not even be successful. It's usually at this point that people, just like you, finally seek out a serious solution, like offsite data backup. I would like to suggest that you start thinking about computer backup the same way you do about insurance. I know that insurance is something that we don't like to talk about, but we all pay it. I don't get in my car in the morning thinking that I'm going to get in an accident, but I did just pay my renewal fees for car insurance. I also don't think that my house is going to burn down tomorrow, or that we're going to have a theft, but of course my property is insured. The same can be said for computers. None of us expect our computers to go down and wipe out all our information. But the reality is this: there are only two types of computer users in this world - those that have suffered a computer failure, and those that will. Now I'm not suggesting that you go out and buy insurance on the information inside your computer. The cost of that type of insurance is upwards of $3500 per year. Not only that, but you have to prove that the information you're insuring is actually valuable. And, even if you pay the fee and prove the value of your data, having insurance on your information won't get it back for you. At best, you'll receive a cheque for its perceived value. Our Virtual Tape Drive service is listed in the data recovery section of the Yellow Pages, and not a week goes by that we don't get at least one call asking us for help from someone who wasn't backing up and experienced a computer crash. These people weren't insured. They didn't protect their information. If you get in a car accident without insurance, your costs will far exceed the cost of the insurance that you should have had. The same can be said for data recovery. Here's the good news: I can get you insurance for your information that will be significantly cheaper than any other type of insurance you'll ever get. Not only that, but if you have to use that insurance, I won't give you a cheque ... I'll give you your information back!nnCopyright 2007 - Blue Melnick. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Reprint Rights: You may reprint this article as long as you leave all of the links active, do not edit the article in any way, and include the following by-line: Blue Melnick is the Founder and Lead Data Management & Storage Specialist of Virtual Tape Drive Canada. Blue invites you to contact him via http://www.vtdcanada.com or by phone at 416-462-3323.