The 5 Absolute Worst Ways to Lose Your Data

There are many ways to destroy data. Some are intentional, some accidental, some so rare you never see them coming. To help you keep your critical files secure from any threat, we’ve compiled the five worst ways to lose your data, and the best way to protect them. Hint: It’s Online Backup.

Spills

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As Steve Jobs once explained to a resentful Apple user whose Macbook Pro was destroyed by a spill, computers “don’t like water.” In fact a cup of coffee can wreck your hard drive as swiftly as a flood can destroy your home.

Spills are perhaps the most humiliating form of data loss, because there’s no one to blame but your clumsy hands (or feet). When the only chance you have of preventing data loss involves a screwdriver and blow dryer, you know you messed up. Imagine explaining to your boss that this month’s expense report is completely erased because you couldn’t keep hold of your Pumpkin Spice Latte!

With online backup, you can drink as much coffee as you want, knowing all your data on every device, from smartphone to tablet to computer to server, is secured in the cloud.

Disasters

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More than ever we are in for stormy weather. In fact, the UN recently announced that 90% of disasters today are weather-related, with the United States being one of the top five most disaster-plagued countries. That means your data is more at risk of being destroyed by natural disasters than ever before.

Disasters like tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods not only threaten your livelihood, but your data, which is, let’s face it, your livelihood.

The best stormproof solution for protecting your critical data is local or cloud backup (especially the latter), both of which are offered by IDrive. That way if your computer is destroyed in a storm, you can easily restore your data to any device later on. Not even an F5 tornado can touch your files when they’re up in the IDrive cloud.

Spontaneous Combustion

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Like beached whales, computers can sometimes freakishly explode. Well, apart from some extreme cases they usually just let off sparks and smoke as your hard drive, along with all your pictures, videos, and documents, melts. A major cause of the rare exploding computer is thermal runaway, a process which can cause your overheated battery to ignite. With IDrive, you can backup as many computers as you own at one fair price, so when your wife asks where all your wedding photos went, you won’t have to answer, “Up in smoke.”

Theft

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While Apple’s recently introduced smartphone Kill feature has caused a drop in stolen iPhones in San Francisco, New York, and London, computer and mobile device theft is always going to be a possibility, especially for devices without built-in preventive features. If you backup your files, you never have to worry about your data being snatched along with your phone. In fact, IDrive is one of the only backup solutions to offer mobile backup, compatible with iOS and Android tablets and phones.

Viruses (Even for Mac!)

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Like survivors in The Walking Dead, none of today’s users are really safe from the harddrive-eating viruses that can devour your files. It’s one of the universe’s preferred ways of destroying your data. In fact, in a study surveying 3,300 IT professionals, Kaspersky found the most common external causes of data loss to be malware infection (35%), attacks via email (21%) and phishing (17%).

Even the Mac, long thought to be immune to viruses, is exceedingly threatened by them. Since hackers like to develop viruses for the platform with the most users, and Apple has been taking over the desktop market share that Microsoft has held, 2015 turned out to be a surprise flu season for the otherwise virus-free Mac which is likely to get worse. Luckily, IDrive offers Mac backup, in addition to our PC backup solution.

Not willing to risk losing your data in a freak accident? Backup your smartphones, tablets, and computers with IDrive online backup today.