Sydney, 31 August 2011. Today’s home computer is yesterday’s shoebox – the place where people store family photos, letters, receipts for tax time and other precious personal and financial information. Yet many households risk losing their priceless records because they do not back up their computer, leading backup specialist Acronis has warned.

The computer is now an indispensible part of most households, from housing photos, videos, music and emails, to work and school projects and personal and financial information. Common hazards that can result in people losing everything on their computer include spilling a drink on a keyboard, hardware and software failure, viruses, accidentally deleting a file, fire and theft.

“When people are asked what they would take with them if they had to evacuate their home in an emergency, family photos are always right near the top of the list. If you lose the computer, those photos and everything else stored on your computer are gone forever if you don’t have a backup,” Karl Sice, General Manager, Pacific, Acronis, said.

“If there is anything on your computer you don’t want to lose, you need a full backup to make those irreplaceable memories replaceable.

“A simple mistake, like accidentally deleting a file or knocking over a drink on a laptop, can wipe out years of work and memories. Protecting your memories and information is key, and comprehensive, local and online backup protection is no longer something only businesses can afford. There are cost-effective, simple-to-use backup solutions for consumers that can help minimise the impact of losing your data. The most important thing is to do something about it.”

Acronis backup tips to keep your personal files safe at home:

Cover all your bases. Make sure your backup will protect all your important files – your documents and files, photos, video and music, critical applications and email. Look for a solution that backs up the complete machine.

Don’t put it off to ‘tomorrow’ – in busy households, it’s easy to put off backups until ‘tomorrow’ – of course, tomorrow never comes! Look for a ‘set and forget’ backup solution that will automatically do a lot of the work for you.

Don’t assume, check. Don’t assume your backups are working properly.

Recovery test: Try testing your backup. There’s nothing worse after a disaster than discovering your backup hasn’t worked!

Check backups automatically: Your software should automatically validate your backed up data.

Keep it current – back up regularly. Make sure you keep offsite copies up-to-date. The longer you leave backups, more files you risk losing. After an initial full backup of the entire system, make sure you set up automatic, incremental backups.

Save only what’s changed. Incremental backups save disk space by only storing what has been changed or added since your previous backup.

Speed it up – A full backup is much faster if you delete unnecessary information first – empty the Recycle Bin and delete temporary files if you don’t want them any more. There’s no point slowing things down by backing up things you don’t need or want.

Store physical backups carefully – make sure your physical backups, such as external hard drives, USBs and DVDs, are stored away properly from heat, sun, moisture and electro-magnetic fields that can damage them. Don’t store them with your laptop – if it is stolen, the thief might take your backups too.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket – use a mix of local and online solutions.

Invest in a good external hard disk – Your backups should be stored on removable media or removable drives and kept separately. That way, your backup is safe even if your laptop or home PC is lost or stolen. Local backups are great for day-to-day recovery.

Put your data in the cloud – double security for your precious memories and personal information by backing it up to the cloud so it can be recovered from anywhere if you ever need it. And because it’s stored online, it’s protected from physical threats, such as fire or theft.

Keep your options open – recover to different hardware. It’s important to have tools that can recover your backup images to dissimilar hardware. That way, if your laptop or home PC is lost or stolen and you can’t find or don’t want an identical replacement, you can put your backup image easily on any new computer you choose.

Backup before you install – Before you install new programs, updates or drivers, taking a full backup of the system makes sense. If anything goes wrong, you can fix it by rolling back to the full backup.

Smile for the camera – Because those photos will be safely backed up!

A Solution
Acronis® True Image™ Home 2012 is an easy-to-use and reliable backup and recovery solution which protects consumers’ files, photos, music and other files, as well as allowing them to share their data securely between multiple PCs and laptops.