Since 2005, March 31st has been recognized as the annual World Backup Day. Although it is designated a day for technology companies to remind everyone how important it is to back up data before they lose it by accident (accidental deletion, hardware failure) or malice (theft, viruse, etc.) — data backup should be an ongoing routine.

You can get a new replacement computer or smartphone any time, but unless you have a backup of your data — files/data cannot be replaced. Think of the importance of your company’s data, and the hours, days, or years of time (and corresponding effort) to create the data. This vital business asset should be backed up.

There are numerous ways to back up data. You can back up data to an external device or you can back up data to a cloud-based backup service; many businesses back up data to both an external device and to a cloud backup service. Consider taking more than one backup to external storage devices and keep the multiple copies in different places to provide protection and access to your data even if one of the backup devices is destroyed or inaccessible.

The world backup day web site is: http://www.worldbackupday.com.