Don’t Forget to Take Your Data Back to School
By David Zimmerman, CEO of LC Technology International,
This article originally appeared in Parent Herald.
“Data” covers all of the digital information you might possess. Whether it’s photos from the summer, or that 10-page paper on photosynthesis. Regardless of the type of digital content, it’s certain that losing this precious information can cause serious distress, poor grades, or lost memories. Thankfully, there are some steps you can take to prevent data loss and recover your information in the case of a problem.
Make a Simple Plan: A business that is dealing with massive amounts of data on a daily basis will likely have formal plan that will help them to manage and store information. Students can duplicate this effort by making such a plan on a smaller scale.
Here are some tips to creating your very own data protection plan:
1) Setup a schedule to move pictures or videos from your phone or digital camera to more permanent storage. Creating a schedule means you’ll do it automatically, and not wait until your phone is full or you have a problem.
2) Create backups to the cloud. Cloud storage is cheap, even for struggling students. Setup automatic cloud updates of all of your files to have an instant and accessible backup.
3) Don’t share your devices or cloud access. Resist the temptation to save a few bucks by sharing cloud space with a friend, or using an external hard drive with a roommate. You also want to password protect your devices and cloud access.
Protect Your Devices – and Use them with Care: Digital cameras and smartphones are built to be durable, but they are still electronics and can be damaged easily. Keep your phone and camera away from liquids, try not to drop them, and avoid sand and dirt. Don’t leave your hard drive or camera on your desk next to a cup of coffee, instead put it in a sealed container. Hard drives that aren’t actively being used should always be in a case for added protection.
SD cards are especially fragile, so watch out for static electricity, spills, and dirt. Here are some other tips: 1) Be patient with your photos. Your phone and DSLR need time to process photos or videos. After taking a pic, give the device a few seconds before trying to access, edit, or share the image. 2) Use care when deleting photos. Don’t use your camera’s internal functions to edit or delete images as this can cause corruption errors. Download to your computer and then use proper editing software.
Data Gone? All Hope is Not Lost! If your hard drive goes bad or you spill some late-night Red Bull on your camera, don’t assume your data is not retrievable. The first step should be to take a deep breath and don’t try to use the hard drive or SD card (the storage cards inside cameras and other devices.)
For hard drives, if you didn’t have cloud backups in place then you need an experience data retrieval company that can open the drive in a special lab and then attempt to extract your data. For this option, you need to weigh the downside of losing your data versus the costs of retrieval – so make sure you have backups!
For fragile SD cards, you don’t want to use free software that you might find from a Google search. These tools don’t work and they often have hidden viruses and malware that can disrupt your entire system. Instead, use a proven tool such as SanDisk RescuePRO that can extract corrupted information from SD cards.
Going to school is stressful enough without having to worry about losing all of your research or a video project. By creating a simple plan and following these tips, you can ensure you retain control over your most important information.
David Zimmerman has been in the hardware/software industry for over 30 years, specifically in the data recovery software market for 18 years. During this period, he has been involved in the creation; marketing and support of the earlier drive recovery software products to enter the PC market and successfully marketed them both nationally and internationally. His company makes data recovery products for most of his competitors. His experience in the market has made him uniquely familiar with the data recovery business.
LC Technology International, Inc. is a global leader in data recovery, file system utilities and data security technology. Clients include original equipment manufacturers, local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, corporate security specialists and IT consultants, among others. Available worldwide and published in more than 24 different languages, LC Technology products are available direct or through several major manufacturers of flash memory products. Founded in 1997, LC Technology is based in Clearwater, Florida.
The post Don’t Forget to Take Your Data Back to School appeared first on Mac Data Recovery Software and Services.
