Every time you get a new phone, computer or tablet, you look at its storage capacity and think: “that should be plenty.” Every time, within a few months or years you’re getting alerts about low storage on your phone. Maybe you keep things in a cloud storage system, but how secure is that, really? Instead you invest in external hard drives that pile up and gather dust. Where you used to have an overflowing filing cabinet, now you have an overflowing desktop. What to do with all that data?

Destroy Old Data      

First and foremost, empty your trash. It sounds basic, but it’s harder in a digital environment than a physical one. Digital messes are much easier to ignore than real life ones. A filing cabinet full to bursting is impossible to ignore but a hard drive that’s cluttered with old or unnecessary data is practically invisible. Don’t just move old data into deep storage, delete it. If it’s sensitive data, to make sure that it can’t be recovered by the unscrupulous, look into hard drive destruction Boston MA or your area. It’s the equivalent of shredding sensitive financial documents.

Back Up Important Data

On the other hand, you don’t want to lose actually important information that you may need later. If it’s something you can’t afford to lose, back it up, not just in different places on your computer, but in completely different places, like an external hard drive or a cloud storage system.

Always Consider Security

That said, if you’re going to use cloud storage, or indeed any kind of data storage system, make sure you’ve taken the steps necessary to secure that data. How safe is your cloud? When was the last time you checked your passwords?

Managing data is like keeping your house clean. It’s annoying in the short term, but incredibly rewarding in the long term.