From pictures and videos to social media posts and emails, we’re creating data at an exponential rate today and it’s all being stored. Do you know where your data is? It’s a question worth finding the answer to.

Each day, our world creates a lot of data – 2.5 quintillion bytes to be exact. (That’s 18 zeros for those who are keeping track). It’s hard for our brains to wrap around that volume and it’s growing. About 90 percent of the data in the world today has been created in the past two years. The amount of data duplication is even more mind-boggling.

We’re creating more data than we think and sometimes even without realizing it. We could easily take up – and pay for – more storage than we need because of our data duplication. It’s led to the emergence of “dedup,” short for data deduplication. It’s a technique used to eliminate copies of data and improve storage utilization. It’s commonly used by backup software and for other network data transfers.

How You’re Creating Data
Let’s just take your photos. Images are shared on email, text message, social media and then re-shared and even re-stored. One image can be duplicated multiple times.

Consider the annual holiday card. You take a photo on your smartphone, save it on your computer and send it in an email to upload it to a retailer for printing. That one image could be saved on your smartphone or camera SD card, computer, email box and a retailer’s server.

3 Answers to Know
It’s never been more important to answer these 3 questions – as an organization and as an individual:

1. Where is your data?
   Your data is likely in a variety of clouds. Let’s just take your smartphone. Both the manufacturers of the devices (ie: Apple) and the phone service providers (ie: Verizon) have their own clouds and provide users space for free and for a fee. That means you could be saving data (images, videos, text messages, contacts) in two places – sometimes just to save money.
   
   Then there’s the third-party storage sources, such as the popular Google Drive and Dropbox, where users save or even sync their data to. We’re also storing significant amounts of data in our email inbox and social media accounts. Take the time to set up a clear system to be certain all your data is stored where you want it.
   
   
2. Is it secure enough?
   Different types of data require different levels of security. Some requirements are dictated by law, as in the case of banking and healthcare, while others can be more personal, like a desire to protect pictures of children. Sometimes encryption or password protection is enough. Other times, you’ll want what two-factor authentication to ensure it is secure. Simply put, it means you need to have something (ie: a password) and know something (ie: answer a question) for access.
   
   When using public storage software like Dropbox, make sure you have gone through their terms of service and have set your security and privacy controls to meet your specific needs.
   
   
3. Is it backed up?
   You may be backing up some data without realizing it today because of the drive to the cloud by service providers, device manufacturers and software platforms. But will it all be in the place you expect when you need it? If your device or server failed, would you be able to restore your data quickly? A clear backup system is your only protection.  Choose a secure place and set up routine times to back up the data you cannot afford to lose.

Our creation of data won’t slow down. Humans are not the only creators. Much of the data explosion comes from machines with GPS, sensors and other technologies. By 2020, we’re expected to have 5,200 GB worth of data for every person on earth, according to a report from Digital Universe. That amounts to 40 trillion gigabytes – or 57 times the amount of all the grains of sand on earth. Find your data today. If you wait, it is only going to get harder.