Information Technology - How To Prevent Data Loss

In the utilization of computers, the consequences of losing data may be very grave.
Loss of data can occur as a consequence of the following events:
- Human being errors including: 1. Accidental reformatting of a hard drive 2. Intentional deletion of crucial data 3. Unintentional deletion of vital data
- Hard disk and storage drive failures including: 1. RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) crash 2. NAS (Network-attached storage) Crash 3. Server|Computer server} failure
- Natural causes and physical damages
- Application software failure and Filesystem corruption
- Malicious intrusion and virus attacks

The unquestionable fact is that current technology offer high-level data recovery applications at all levels. It doesn't matter the kind of media concerned, the brand of PC system, the operating system platform or the capacity of the PC server, in many cases, data is recoverable.


However, the consequences of information loss can every so often be immense, when you take into account the consequences of not having the information anymore, the time you require to recreate or recover the data and the damaging impression it will have on relations, colleagues, a whole management information system, establishment or external concerns who own a share in the lost data.
For example, in any commercial environment, the cost of data loss may run into millions of dollars per hour. Data recovery time depends on the capacity of the hardware and it may well take time to retrieve lost data.

In addition, recovering lost data can be very expensive, this depends on the amount of harm done to the disk or hard drive in question.
It is important to stress that the highest source of data loss can be attributed to errors caused by humans, as a result the liability is on us to prevent the loss of our valuable data as much as possible.

These easy but important steps should be taken to avoid loss of data:
-Regular backup of data - on site or off site.
-Setting up and regular update of antivirus protection.
-Uninterrupted update of PC systems as well as servers to utilize latest security fixes.
-Installation and effective improvement of firewalls to put off invasion and malicious attacks.
-Setting up of DLP (Data Loss Prevention) systems to monitor and protect data usage by organizations.
-Setting up of proper mechanisms to protect against power failure and power surge.

It is usually impractical to completely avoid the loss of data. However, in as much as everybody or entity using a computer to process and store up vital data is at risk of losing it, taking adequate precautions to decrease the chance is always a wise choice.