International Verify Your Backups Day

I’m sure all of us are extremely studious in making timely and numerous backups of our valuable data (aren’t we?). But without actually testing those backups you never really know if they worked properly. Maybe it didn’t backup all the files that you thought it would. Maybe the backup drive is starting to fail. Maybe there was a glitch during the backup and some of the files are now corrupt. Maybe … maybe … maybe!

Let’s face it, no matter how careful you are, there are still lots of things that can silently go wrong with backups. So wouldn’t you want to find out about those problems before you have an actual emergency and desperately need those files on your backup? Well, that’s exactly what International Verify Your Backups Day is all about. It’s a day to remind everyone to test their backups and help keep their data safe.

What kind of tests should you perform? First, review the files that are in your backup and make sure that all the files you expect to be there, are really there. Next, randomly choose some of your more important files, restore them to a temporary folder, and then verify that those restored files are intact. And finally, if it’s a bootable backup, then make sure that you can actually boot from it. That’s all there is to it! It’s a simple thing to do and doesn’t take much time, so there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t start verifying your backups right now. And while you’re verifying those backups why not spread the word to your friends? I’m sure they would appreciate you looking out for them.