World Backup Day reminds us to prepare for the unexpected

(This article is sponsored by Simply Computing.)

Looking at our calendar, it seems that every square has a cause for celebration. Doughnuts, wildlife conservation, naps, and even Bunsen burners(?) get their moment—and day—to shine.

And heck! We love a holiday as much as the next person.  Give us an excuse to indulge, or promote a good cause, or sleep, and we’re here for it.

But what about the more practical holidays? The ones that don’t leave us with a sugar slump or a hangover, and instead, help us prevent future disaster.

Specifically, we’re referring to World Backup Day on March 31. And we don’t use the term disaster lightly—albeit, at the micro level.

Yes, we’re all too familiar with the protocol for St. Paddy’s—drink all the Guinness—or Easter—eat all the chocolate—but what does World Backup Day mean and why should we take note?

If you’ve ever been in the unfortunate position of losing your most important documents, your treasured photographs, or your favourite music, you’ll know how devastating it can be.

And while we don’t like to use scare tactics, the experts at Simply Computing say that losing files or information is far more common that you might think. Accidents, viruses, and theft are just a few of the ways that your data can be lost.

Think about the video that captures your kid’s first steps or the photographs from your late family member’s birthday party or the copy of your speech from your wedding day. These memories are priceless. And if you’re honest, how much time have you spent preparing for their unexpected loss?

If the answer is none, then that could be a big—and costly—mistake. The fact is, there are some situations where you just can’t get your data back. If your laptop is stolen, for example, then the loss of the computer might be the least of your worries.

And chances are, you’ll do and pay whatever it takes to retrieve it. Data recovery costs anywhere from $300 to $1,500 and even then there are no guarantees.

World Backup Day provides an important reminder that we should have second and even third copies of our data. No one plans to lose stuff, but you can be ready for the worst-case scenario.

So now that you’ve been suitably warned, let’s talk about storage drives, which are a perfect solution for backing up your data.

Simply Computing offers a whole selection of external storage drives including some great options from G-Tech. G-Tech is the only brand in the industry to offer a five-year warranty, which speaks to the products’ reliability.

The friendly and knowledgeable staff at Simply is delighted to help you find something that best suits your needs—and the recent blog post on the topic is very useful as well.

Ultimately, it comes down to how much storage you need, but one terabyte is likely sufficient for the average person.

To put this into perspective, one terabyte (TB) stores approximately 300,000+ photos, 40 days of video footage, 200,000+ songs, or 500 movies. And when you think that you can buy a good hard drive for less than $100—the G-Tech Mobile USB 3.0 Hard Drive 1 TB from Simply is $99.99—investment in backing up your data seems like a no-brainer.

Once you’ve got your hard drive, backing up your files can be done manually using a copy and paste method. Or, for Mac users, the Time Machine software is a good option, which works in the background, saving your data as you go.

But if we lost you at copy and paste, the Simply team is always happy to help save your files. So really there’s no excuse.

World Backup Day may have passed but you shouldn't let that stop you. Back up now and get peace of mind so that you can focus on making memories—and photos and videos— for all the other holidays of the year. We’re looking at you July 19 (Ice Cream Day).