March 31 Is World Backup Day

April 1 My first World Backup Day article for forbes.com was in 2014. At that time, I said that, “A few years ago, several companies and folks concerned with data protection updated this idea as a one-day World Backup Day on March 31 of each year .

” April 1 is often called April Fool’s Day. The message from the Reddit users who originally promoted World Backup Day in 2011 was, don’t be a fool—backup your data! Since 2014 the need for backup for data has grown as the digital data that we generate has increased in number and size. People can back up their data in many ways.



Some people subscribe to cloud backup services and some back up their data to a local storage device. Best practices for back up are to keep more than one copy of valuable content and to keep those copies in different media and or locations. Richard Copeland, CEO of Leaseweb USA says that, “Skipping backup isn’t just a bad idea - it’s a ticking time bomb.

Many companies think they’re saving money by relying on hardware redundancy or high availability, only to get blindsided when their data vanishes. One wrong click, one system crash, or one ransomware attack, and suddenly, they’re in full-blown disaster mode, scrambling to recover what’s lost. No backup? No safety net.

Just downtime, financial hemorrhaging, and a whole lot of regret.” Lance Ohara, Vice President of Endpoint Marketing at Seagate Technology suggests that people follow the 3-2-1 rule for data storage. This means keeping three versions of your data in a few different places – the original and two copies on two different media, with one offsite.

For consumers, this means the original data on your laptop, a backup to a storage device, and a cloud backup. Western Digital, another major supplier of hard disk drives, recently published results from an online survey of 6,118 respondents from 10 countries. 79% of the participants actively backup their content, with the majority of them doing so because they fear losing important files.

Of those who don’t back up their data, one third of them don’t know how to back up their data. So, education and making it easy to backup data could help these folks protect their data. 81% of the survey participants rely on cloud storage alone even though 65% of them agree that could storage for backup is too expensive.

WDC of course, sell storage devices for backup including the WD My Passport, 20th Anniversary Edition HDD shown below. Western Digital 25th Anniversary My Passport External HDD For many people and organizations, cloud storage can serve as the remote storage in a three-two-one backup practice. Pawel Staniec, CTO of Catalogic said that, “It is important to remember that cloud-native solutions do not diminish the value of conventional backup techniques.

Robust backup strategies remain critical for ensuring data integrity and enabling recovery after unexpected data loss or corruption. Together, these complementary approaches form a comprehensive framework that enhances operational resilience and secures the long-term viability of modern, containerized environments.” Veeam also recommends using more than cloud storage.

Relying on a single backup solution poses a high risk. If the data is only backed up on a cloud server, and a natural disaster or cyber outage wipes out the server, those precious memories and critical data could be lost forever. Micron is another company selling backup storage devices, which are solid state drives using NAND flash, like the Crucial X10Pro below.

James Van Patten, Director of Memory and Storage Product Lines for Crucial, Micron Technology’s consumer brand, says that, “Every day, not just on World Backup Day, it’s crucial to remember that data loss can strike when you least expect it. By backing up your data, you’re safeguarding your precious information and ensuring you have a dependable copy ready to go.” Micron's Crucial X10Pro External SSD Data backups can also help people and organizations survive from cyber-attacks.

Corey Nachreiner, CISO at WatchGuard, said, ““In a digital environment where 80% of organizations are vulnerable to ransomware attacks, implementing regular data backups across your organization’s critical components is key to your cybersecurity strategy.” Dale Zabriskie, Field CISO at Cohesity said, “Data is the lifeblood of an organization, and hackers know companies are willing to pay to get the business back up and running. Therefore, protocols around maintaining and backing up databases are a critical component of a cyber resilience strategy.

Quickly and efficiently restoring systems can significantly reduce downtime, safeguard reputation, and maintain trust with customers and investors.” But just have a storage device isn’t enough, you need to think about your backup strategy. Larry O’Conner, CEO and Founder of Other World Computing said that, “A well-planned and executed strategy for your backups mean you’re not relying on memory, and the right tech-enhanced with the right strategy ensures you’re protected no matter what.

The goal isn’t just to back up your data; it’s to have a system you can actually trust and know it just works. Because when you know your work is safe, you can stop worrying about ‘what if’ and focus on doing what you love.” Molly Presley, SVP of Global Marketing at Hammerspace gave some more advice on backup strategies, particularly for distributed storage environments.

“Automated data protection policies bolster enforcement across distributed geographies, strengthening an organization’s data resiliency and business continuity. They also enable organizations to manage their global data environments and maintain the efficacy of their AI systems and data pipelines. Jason Lohrey, CEO and Founder of Arcitecta points to regular copies of data.

“Continuous data availability is a game-changing form of protection that actively records every significant change in real-time for every file so a user can go back to any point in time to retrieve data - easily and without the assistance of IT. This approach merges the file system and backup as one entity. As a result, every change in the file system can be recorded as it happens, making it seamless to retrieve lost or deleted data, regardless of when it existed and across the entire time continuum.

Flash memory, SSDs, as well as HDDs can be part of a backup solution for data centers and larger IT organizations. Gal Naor, CEO of StorONE said that “Hybrid storage solutions that intelligently tier data between flash and disk can offer a more balanced approach. Flash can be used for critical recovery points, while older snapshots and backups can reside on lower-cost disk storage.

This tiering ensures rapid recovery without the excessive costs of maintaining an all-flash backup infrastructure.” In addition to HDDs and SSDs, magnetic tape also serves an important role in larger enterprise backup and archiving applications. Mitch Seigle, CMO at Spectra Logic said that, “While cyber security tools continue to evolve, there is also a critical role for tape technology in safeguarding data.

This tried-and-true technology offers an added layer of security, further enhanced by an air gap that keeps data physically isolated from online threats, making it a valuable part of a modern resilience strategy.” Bob Fine, Senior Analyst Relations Manager of the LTO Program at Quantum gave more insight on the history and uses of magnetic tape for backups. “Linear Tape Open (LTO) tape storage is a tried and tested example of a reliable air-gapped storage system.

As it celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, LTO tape storage is as popular as ever, as businesses are increasingly reliant on their backups.” AI also depends upon robust backup solutions. Chris Girard, Sr.

Director of Product Management at Vdura said, “Equally critical in AI development, the primary form of backup begins at the model checkpoint, which must support frequent, rapid saves to avoid data loss and facilitate smooth model iteration. Prioritizing instant recovery minimizes downtime for clusters engaged in training next-generation AI, and these solutions expand to support the growth of AI development environments.” Rich Gadomski, Co-Chairman of the Active Archive Alliance said that, “For many data centers, the archive copy is often the only copy of archival data exposing it in the case of a data loss event.

Since the business value of untapped archival data is increasing, especially with the rapid rise of AI, creating a second, secure air-gapped copy in a different geographic location will soon become a standard data protection strategy.” March 31 is World Backup Day, when experts suggest that you backup your data today and every day so you don’t end up being an April Fool..