4. Physical risks

Besides people, there are plenty of other ways that data can be lost or damaged. Here are a few more to think about.

Fire, floods and lightning damage

courtesy Wiki Commons

Although thankfully a rare occurrence, fires and floods do happen. They can cause immense damage and even total destruction of the computer equipment.

Most people back up but keep the backups in the same place as the original. With fire, flood or lightning it is quite likely that the backups are damaged as well.

Theft of equipment

Computers are expensive, attractive items and can be a prime target for thieves.

If your computer is stolen and you haven't made a back up of your data then all of your hard work will end up walking out of the door with the thief.

Scratches on the hard disk

The platters inside a hard disk spin very quickly whilst a 'head' hovers less than a hair's width above them, reading the data.

If you don't shut your machine down properly this head crashes onto the spinning platter causing scratches.

If a scratch occurs just at the point your data is stored, it can be damaged and you might not be able to access it.