World Backup Day: Protect your data before you lose it

How World Backup Day Came to Be

Every year on March 31st, the world observes World Backup Day. The idea was first proposed by Reddit user Adam Jefferson in 2011. The date was not chosen by chance — reminding people of the importance of timely backups right before April 1st helps mitigate the impact of April Fools’ Day viruses and malware, such as the "911" script and the Conficker worm.

The primary goal of this day is to raise awareness about the importance of data preservation. Unexpected technical failures, malware infections, accidental deletions, or even an overzealous cleaning session can lead to the loss of valuable information. This applies to large corporations as well as individual users, who should particularly consider backing up their smartphones — now storing far more critical data than just a few years ago. Lost or forgotten phones in taxis remain a significant problem.

Data Loss Stories: Why Backups Are Essential

The Saved Toy Story 2: How Pixar Nearly Lost a Movie

One of the most well-known cases of data loss involved the creation of Toy Story 2. A year before its release, nearly 90% of the film was accidentally deleted by a simple command: rm -rf *. The movie was only saved because one of the technical directors had a backup copy. The team had to manually review and restore over 70,000 files.

Other Data Loss Incidents

• In 2011, Gmail experienced a failure that temporarily erased emails for 0.02% of users. Fortunately, thanks to backups, the data was restored within hours.
• A GitLab.com error resulted in the loss of over 300 GB of data.
• In 2021, a fire at French company OVH’s data centers led to significant corporate data loss.
• An update to Adobe Lightroom’s mobile app for iPhone and iPad erased thousands of photos and expensive presets that users had accumulated over the years.

The Dangers of Data Loss: Why a Single Storage Device Isn’t Enough

There are many ways data can be lost forever:

1. Natural Disasters. Fires, hurricanes, earthquakes, and other disasters can destroy computers and servers, leaving users without critical information.

2. Technical Failures Hard drives can fail at any time, and storage device damage or software errors can instantly erase data.

3. Cyberattacks. Viruses, ransomware, and hacker attacks can not only steal data but permanently delete it as well.

4. Human Error. Accidental deletions, device theft, or improper handling of storage media remain leading causes of data loss.

The "3-2-1 Rule": A Reliable Backup Strategy

American photographer Peter Krogh introduced a universal data protection principle in his book The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers — the "3-2-1 Rule":

• 3 copies of data
• 2 different types of storage media.
• 1 copy stored offsite.

How to implement it:

• Primary files stored on a work computer.
• One backup copy on an external hard drive.
• One backup copy on a data center server.

This approach significantly reduces the risk of data loss and ensures quick recovery even in extreme situations.

Useful Backup Tips

1. Create backups regularly.
2. Use different types of storage media.
3. Periodically check the integrity of backup copies.
4. Store files in multiple locations.