Keeping Your Laptop and Data Safe
Your laptop is likely one of your most essential devices, so you must take proactive measures to protect it while traveling. Imagine taking your laptop out of your baggage to discover that the screen has been cracked, or even worse – it won’t turn on. As sturdy as they may look, laptops are delicate machines that can be damaged quite easily.
Like most expensive items in this world, it’s up to you to keep them in the best condition as soon as you remove them from the packaging. Unfortunately, keeping that level of care up can be difficult, especially if you’re moving around a lot.
Ways Your Laptop Can Be Damaged While Traveling:
Here are seven common ways you can quickly damage a laptop while traveling:
Cracked screens: Your screen is one of the most fragile parts of your laptop, meaning any hard objects stuck inside can cause the screen to crack
Trauma: Unfortunately, your backpack probably isn’t sturdy enough to protect your laptop from banging into walls, seats, or desks.
Dropping: Be wary of throwing your backpack on the ground or hanging it from high places.
Shaking: If your laptop has a mechanical hard disk drive, vigorous shaking can disrupt the components, potentially causing a loss of saved data.
Food/beverage exposure: Think twice about storing your laptop near any food or drinks; an accidental spill could cause plenty of unnecessary headaches.
Overloading/pressure: Packing a laptop into an already jampacked backpack is a quick way to crush/squash it.
Overheating: Leaving your laptop on while stored in your backpack can cause it to overheat, so you must turn it off completely before storing it away.
How to Properly Care for Your Laptop While Traveling:
Your laptop is far too valuable to leave its safety up to chance. Thankfully, there are quite a few ways you can protect it while traveling. No matter where you’re traveling, it’s crucial to understand how to properly carry/store your laptop in a backpack or carry-on. Follow these six steps to ensure that your laptop is protected while traveling:
Shut down your laptop: There’s no need to keep your laptop running at full capacity when you’re not using it. Make sure to save your work before powering down your computer before moving locations. Keeping your laptop powered down will stop it from overheating.
Unplug cords and devices: Now that you’ve powered down your laptop unplug any cables or devices such as power cords, flash drives, headphones, etc. Transporting a laptop with components plugged in could cause damage to the items and respective ports.
Completely close the laptop: For any 2-in-1s or models with reversible screens, ensure that the screen is in its starting position and facing the keyboard when closed. Don’t close any objects such as notebooks, earbuds, or pens between your keyboard and screen. Not only could that damage the items, but it could also damage the keyboard or screen.
Store in a protective case: Make sure you store your laptop correctly and securely in a protective case for an added layer of padding.
Be gentle with your luggage: Even if you have a reliable backpack insert made to keep your laptop safe, it’s still crucial that you handle it with care. Remember, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
Don’t forget to zip: If your backpack or carry-on isn’t completely closed, the chance of your laptop sliding out of its protective compartment is too high.
General Tips for Traveling With Your Laptop
Along with knowing how to carry your laptop in a backpack or carry-on properly, you should also know how to travel with your laptop in other ways safely. Be proactive before and during travel to ensure that your laptop, its components, and all crucial data remain safe. Here are some additional tips to follow when traveling with a laptop:
Back up your data: At the very least, you should back up your data before any travel plans. Your laptop could get lost, damaged, or stolen, causing you to lose important information. We depend on technology now more than ever, and the increase in people working online has led to a disproportionate rise in malicious elements. This imbalance could negatively affect your data and make it vulnerable to a permanent loss. That’s why it’s crucial to establish a robust data backup and recovery plan.
Purchase insurance: Travel insurance often seems like an unnecessary expense; however, it’s better to be over-prepared as you never truly know what could happen.
Update security software: Ensure that all your software is up to date and everything remains running optimally.
Use secure Wi-Fi connections: When possible, use trusted Wi-Fi connections to safeguard your data and personal information.
Consider laptop protection: You probably have a travel-safe laptop case, but why not enhance protection even more? Consider investing in keyboard covers, screen guards, virus protection, and insurance to keep your laptop secure.
Our Final Thoughts
Your laptop is one of your most crucial and fragile devices, and it often plays a significant role in your everyday life. Even if you have taken proper safety measures by following all of the above steps, your laptop might be stolen or destroyed while traveling. That’s why it’s vital to back up your data before your trip; that way, you’ll still have access to valuable reports and work files if something unfortunate does happen.
Your data is the foundation of your business. If you lose company data, recovery could be slow, costly, or virtually impossible. Data backups are your only guarantee against data loss in a ransomware attack. Our team is ready to help you map your data center architecture and build a solution that delivers peace of mind. Give your company the highest level of data protection possible with our help. As your full-service outsourced IT department, we provide a technology blueprint to help businesses get where they want to be. We’re future-proofing small businesses with insight into their IT needs. See if you qualify for a free IT consultation today.
