BY KHALID WANI
Director, Content Solutions Business, India, Middle East and Africa, Western Digital
The digitized world gives us enormous opportunities to create memories. Every travel, every activity, every post, and practically every moment becomes a memory for the next day. Many of us would have just celebrated this Valentine Day with our loved ones, clicked a lot of pictures on our mobile phones or digital cameras, and would now be looking at them fondly. Despite that, the concept of saving and backing up memories has not quite garnered much thought and attention like it should have.
It might give us the jitters to think that one fine day, we could find all our memories created over the years suddenly lost. It would be heart-breaking to see the priceless memories lost in a fraction of a second. Are we doing enough to back them up?
According to a recent survey commissioned by Western Digital and conducted by research firm Vanson Bourne with 5,000 consumers across the UK, France, Germany and the United States, nearly 19% of respondents had deleted some photos or video in their mobile device to free space and had later regretted doing it. This figure further increased to 27%, when we looked at the age bracket of 16-24-year-olds. When it comes to the most handy device to keep immediate data – smartphones - approximately 31% (between the 16 to 24 age group) said that they run out of space on a weekly basis while 17% say this is a problem on a daily basis.
This shows that consumers are sacrificing precious memories and valuable content to make more space on their devices. The findings support the notion that there is a wide gap between how much digital content people are consuming and creating and how much storage space they own. Now, let’s think about special occasions, like Valentine’s Day, where you click a lot of pictures, make videos, put together photo montages, share romantic collages and what not. There is no end to creating memories. After a few years, what if you want to revisit that moment which led you to laugh hysterically or cry clumsily?
What is your reference? You may have deleted the pictures and videos from your phone due to lack of space, or may have transferred it to a computer without a back-up. Precarious, isn’t it?
People should bank on reliable and efficient data storage products to help them manage their digital lives easily so they don’t have to delete a precious memory.
To be sure that our digital universe is safely backed up, it’s important to consider:
1. The storage device should be a quality device and provide security measures, such as data password encryption, to avoid that our information falls into the wrong hands.
2. Use backup software to automate the back-up process and avoid depending on manual back-ups.
3. Keep copies in several places. Make sure to have two copies of the most important data at a minimum. Have multiple copies in different units and different physical locations, to reduce the risk of losing the data completely.
4. Create a personal cloud. Find a solution that ensures your content is protected in the comfort of your home and is accessible from any device when you need it.
You can lose all of your digital content from a computer error, a virus, a theft, or an accident, if you don’t have an adequate back-up plan. Show your special someone you love them by helping them protect their digital universe.
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