On a stormy night in early July, a powerful lightning storm shot a bolt of pure energy through a closed living room window to the back of our 32-inch Sony Bravia television. I watched as the lightning bolt blasted an almost neon-like yellow and white flash onto the TV screen and sounded an ear-splitting crash in the room, causing my wife, our daughter, and me to jump up in disbelief.

The TV immediately died. Later we learned that the cable box and external sound bar system were also blown out by the powerful blast of energy. The next morning, I assessed the damage, filed an insurance claim, and checked on my two work PCs. One machine had no internet access. A bit of investigation found that an internal network card in that PC was fried by the storm. I plugged in a USB Ethernet dongle and got the machine back online in just a few minutes.

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As I breathed a sigh of relief that the lightning damage to my computer wasn’t worse, I recalled an experience seven years ago that didn’t end as well. It was 2013, and I was in the middle of my workday as a technology journalist. With no warning, my homebuilt work PC silently consumed its last watt of power and died as I was writing a story on deadline. Diagnosis – major system component failure. I started up my laptop to finish my story, then ordered the parts needed to rebuild my work PC.

Be redundant

When that PC stopped running, I gained a new respect for how a dead or dying computer can immediately affect your work and livelihood. I realized that one PC in my office wasn’t enough and that every critical office function should be redundant.

When the new motherboard and central processing unit arrived to rebuild that machine, I replaced the dead parts, reloaded Windows and my applications, and went back to work. But I knew I was at the mercy of the next PC hardware or software issue that would happen. So I ordered all the parts to build a second PC that would sit on the floor next to my main PC as an emergency backup.  This way, in the event of a future computer problem, I could be assured that another PC with everything I needed to get back to work instantly would be available.

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Enlist a secure cloud-backup service

For even deeper redundancy, I signed up for an account with a secure, encrypted cloud backup vendor, Budapest, Hungary-based Tresorit, which backs up my data and synchronizes it almost instantly with every PC or laptop registered on my account. That means no matter where I am, my data is available and safe for my use. Another great feature of the service is that I can access past versions of my files in case I delete something accidentally. Using my secure account, I can also access my files using any computer in any location.  If one PC in my office dies while working, all I need to do is log into my other machine, and my files are available. Tresorit is a subscription service that costs $12.50 a month billed monthly, or $125 for a 12-month subscription billed annually. That includes up to 500GB of data from up to five devices.  

I am also signed up with the online cloud company, BackBlaze, to backup both of my PCs. BackBlaze constantly backs up all drives and files that I designate. With this complete backup of the data on my PCs, my data redundancy is even more robust. I can access it file by file or obtain a complete backup via a loaner drive that is shipped to me to transfer files back to my PC. BackBlaze automatic backup service is available at $6 monthly per PC or $60 per machine annually for unlimited data backup. 

Tresorit backs up and synchronizes files across multiple machines in real-time, making it useful for work that needs to be accessed immediately. BackBlaze backs up designated files for long term storage in the event of a hard drive crash or other disaster, such as a complete or partial data restore.  

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Use a backup drive

In addition to a second trusty PC, my online synchronized work file services, and my complete cloud backups, I also use a 10TB external Western Digital EasyStore backup drive on my main PC to constantly back up the contents of its hard drives. 

And lastly, I regularly email backups of important stories I am writing to my own Gmail account in real-time as I compose them just to be safe. 

Gleaned from that original 2013 office computer that failed me during a workday, these hard-earned lessons and backup and redundancy routines may sound cumbersome. But that recent lightning strike gave me a fresh reminder of what’s at stake if disaster comes barreling into my living room window. 

I’ve learned that I won’t willingly lose the data that sustains my business or personal life. And you shouldn’t be willing to lose your personal or business data either. Take the time to put your own multi-level data protection and IT redundancy strategies into place. 

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