Hurricane season is finally here and it is a good time to evaluate your current disaster recovery procedures for your computers.  If you are a large corporation or simply a home computer user, we all have valuable and some irreplaceable files on our computers.  In this post, we will cover things you should do to prepare for hurricane season.  Most of this is good practice year round but it is a good time to re evaluate your procedure with the threat of a natural disaster.


Tips for disaster plan:

• 1.  All computers in the home or business should be connected to a battery backup.  This will ensure that you are protected from a power surge in the event lightning strikes.
• 2.  Any computer that has valuable information that can't be replaced should be set up with an online backup solution.  We can point you in the right direction if you need help setting this up but remember, every picture and any files you want to keep should be included in this backup.
• 3.  You could also have an external hard drive to backup necessary information that you might need in the event you are evacuating.  These files should still be part of the online backup but if you are leaving and will readily need some files, make sure to have a thumb drive or USB drive handy.
• 4.  A good practice is also scanning important documents and keeping a digital copy of them on your USB drive and your online backup.  This may include, insurance policy information, vehicle registrations, social security cards, health information etc.  In the event of a total loss to your home, this will make the repair process easier if you have this information in hand or accessible to print.
• 5.  You can never plan enough but in the event you need to evacuate your home and do not have the above procedures in place just yet, take the computer with you if you have time.  Do not endanger yourself if you need to leave quickly, but do this as a last resort.  If you have everything backed up, the computer can easily be replaced and you just need to worry about your files.
• 6.  If you also do not have a battery backup and are going to stay at your home, make sure to unplug your computer, modem, any routers and printers before the storm hits to make sure they will not be damaged by lightning.

If you follow these steps, you will have a good disaster recovery plan in place and it will minimize stress in the event you need to evacuate.  If you have any questions, please let us know.