Have you backed up your data recently? Every day people, businesses, even games lose huge amounts of valuable data because they fail to follow this one basic procedure. World Backup Day is set aside as a reminder to back up your files, even if it’s once a year! A backup is a reserve copy of all the files you’d be loathe to use. There’s nothing more traumatizing than having losing your phone, or having your hard drive crash, and having hundreds of valuable and irreplaceable documents or photos suddenly gone beyond retrieval.

No matter how secure or safe you feel your data and equipment is, it’s important to back up your files. 30% of people don’t have any way to save their important files in the event that tragedy strikes. In our electronic based world, there are hundreds of ways to suddenly have things go terribly awry. 29% of all disasters are caused by accidents, costing valuable time and money as the resources they affected are lost forever. You may feel your computer is safe, but 1 in 10 of all computers, including household and business computers, are infected with a virus that may suddenly cause all of your data to be gone beyond retrieval.

“But my phone is always on me!” I hear you say! Wonderful! That’ll make it easier for you to be one of the 113 phones stolen every minute, each day. In this modern digital world, many of us live from our phones. Whether it’s for business, or just personal use, these electronic assistants often contain gigs of valuable documents, pictures, videos, and music. Do you really want to chance losing all of that when backup options are so easy and available?

“Easy? How do I backup my files and protect myself?” There ya go! Now we’re asking the right questions! There are a myriad of ways you can use to backup your files, most phones are connected to some form of backup system. iPhones are tied directly into iTunes, which can back up all of your valuable data, you just need to hook that thing up to your computer and update the files daily! You can even do it as part of charging, just plug it in to your computer, set it to backup, and it’ll go about the process automatically while it takes a charge.

Android phones are intrinsically tied to Google, and with the availability of Google Docs and the Google backup, it’ll tie all of your data in to your profile, uploading it to a secure location while allowing you to choose which ones to share! Google Docs can also be used to store all of your valuable files online! The bonus here is that from google docs you can access your files from any computer, saving you from having to wait for your system to be back up before you get those important files back!

Another option is open that is the ‘all inclusive’ option. If you’d prefer to back up everything instead of just bits and pieces, there are tons of places online that will give you reviews of dozens of options for full backup services. Take some time to cruise through them and decide which one is right for you. Remember, if the only copy you have of your important files is all in one place, it only takes one accident, one small disaster for you to lose them all. So take the time to backup your files, and stop yourself from becoming one of this year’s April’s Fools.