Having a backup in life is always essential. If we ever have any problems with a tire on our car, it’s okay, because there’s a spare tire to help you get through. Backing up your data is important for that same reason. If there should ever be an issue with your data or rather the device it’s stored on, you’ll be able to breathe better, as long as you never forgot to back up your data in the first place.

Listed below are the top five reasons why never forgetting to back up your data is so very important for you and potentially your business.

1. Doing Work Twice
No one wants to have to do something over again that they already finished. The first philosophy many working people live by is, “Do it right the first time.” This way, you’ll never have to worry about doing work the second time.

Suffering a major failure and not having backups of your data will almost always ensure that all the hard work you did the first time around will be gone and mean absolutely nothing. Not a single person likes doing things another time, especially after working so hard on it. You can prevent all of this from happening by simply backing up your data.

2. Simple Recovery
Not a single person on this planet has never made a mistake. People make mistakes quite often. Emails containing viruses are opened all the time by people not paying attention and by people not knowing. Virus-filled emails can often lead to people accidently deleting important files for work.

However, there is no reason to fear these situations happening to you, as long as you take frequent snapshots of your systems. You’ll then be able to restore to the most recent snapshot taken if data ever were to be deleted. This simple recovery of data has saved many businesses from failing.

3. Business Failure
A large majority of businesses that have suffered data loss do not reopen. This is because those businesses do not back up their data. If they did, whenever they lose their data, they’d be able to get all the information back. Simply by thinking ahead and preparing for the worst, you can be one of the few businesses that do not fail once suffering from loss of data.

4. Competitive Advantage
Having backups of your data can help you to stay ahead of your competitors. In the untimely event of a data disaster, the first business to get back up has the advantage of succeeding. Once a business falls, it’s often hard for them to get back up to where they once were.

5. Audits, Taxes, and Archives
Most businesses are required to keep business records for an extended period; whether it be for tax purposes or because of various regulations. It's easy to assume that your computers have you covered since you’ve got all of your information on there, but having one copy of anything can be a mistake in the future. The IRS won’t care if you had a data problem; that’ll just show them how you are not compliant, allowing them to fine you.

You should never forget to back up your data as it can lead to business failure and possible fines. Be responsible and ready for the worse to happen. You’ll thank yourself in the future.