Last fall we were able to weather the complete meltdown of the company that was hosting our web site without experiencing any down time or loss of data. This was because we kept all files backed up on a local computer. There has still been no explanation for why the Jatol web hosting company just suddenly stopped providing service and there were many businesses which were depending on them that suffered huge losses of data and business. Jatol was providing service on servers that were rented from a third company and when they suddenly stopped paying the rental fees on those servers, the web sites just began going offline and this was occurring without any warning. We were in the position of having all of our data backed up and we were able to find a new hosting company within a few days while the site was still up and we didn’t suffer any down time at all. It also occurred at the end of our contract with them and so we also weren’t out any money. While the loss of data from the above scenario is quite rare, it does happen and it is absolutely essential that backup systems be in place. There are currently 563 pages on this web site and their loss would be irreplaceable. In our own case the data on the web site can be downloaded if the local backup should fail because of a hard disc crash, or loss because of fire, theft or other damage. In addition the data is backed up on flash drives periodically. However, this brings up the topic of protecting your own files on your home computer. We are all just a hard disc crash away from losing precious information. Some steps that can be taken to prevent this would be the backing up important files on external storage devices such as CD’s, flash drives and in the case of older computers, on floppy discs. These should then be stored in a separate location from your computer. Another thing to consider is storage of some files like address books and emails online. Some Internet service provider systems |
provide an option for storing them either online or on your hard disc. Storing them online would prevent their loss if a mishap occurs on your local computer. PS from Henny |