Most Valuable PC Upgrade

Seras provides information technology solutions and services to businesses and consumers throughout the greater Columbia SC area - including Lexington, West Columbia, Irmo, Blythewood, and even out to Camden, Sumter, Orangeburg, and Newberry.  We receive many requests from customers to diagnose slow start up times on computers or slow performance in general.  We check for viruses, sufficient memory, and then the hard drive - age, space, and size.

SSD - The way of the Future

While many problems are solved through adequate cleanup, virus protection, or memory upgrades; one of the best values is in hard drive upgrades.  Most have heard of the old business equation:

Quality (Benefits) / Price = Overall Value

If the price goes up, the value goes down.  If the quality or benefit goes up, then a better value is created.  When it comes to upgrading your hard drive to a solid state drive (SSD), it becomes apparent that this is one of the most valuable upgrades to your PC.  Take a look at the following:

• Traditional hard drives use a spinning disk similar to a record player, which can break down or get very hot
• Excessive heat shortens the lifespan and performance of a computer
• The reduction in overall moving parts reduces the amount of energy used by your PC
• Instead of moving parts, SSDs use "flash memory" similar to RAM, but unlike RAM, SSD memory remains even when the unit loses power
• Simple functions have dramatic increases in speed such as getting reboot times down to 20 seconds versus 3-5 minutes, browsing the web, and launching programs

Testing

Everyone wants things faster and more reliable, but how do you prove the change in speeds.  Check out this test performed by www.howtogeek.com with the SSD on the top and a Traditional Hard Drive on the bottom:

Prices for SSDs have dropped considerably over the last year or so with options in the $50.00 range!  This rounds out our equation - showing that prices have gone down and quality is going up.

Replacement

Adding or replacing the hard drive is easy as most desktop computers have more than one hard drive tray.  Simply power down the machine, insert the SSD into a secondary drive bay and use the old hard drive as a backup for storage.  In other cases, you may need to clone the data from your old drive to your new SSD.  Laptops are more complicated.  Some of these steps may be a bit complicated for newbies and Seras is glad to help.  Contact us here if you would like more information!

Disaster Recovery: Are you protected?

Seras provides computer and IT support throughout the greater Columbia area including Irmo, Lexington, West Columbia, and many other areas.  Among our many services are networking, computer repair, cabling and installation, server upgrades, full network monitoring, and yes: Disaster Recovery Plans.  

Devastating fires have destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses across the Southeast - how prepared are you?

Imagine that you have been worriedly watching the news for weeks and finally get the terrible news that your town is being evacuated.  As you hurriedly try to secure your family, valuables, and protect your personal items, how do you prepare your business so that in the aftermath of the disaster, you can get back to work and rebuild?  Over 90% of businesses use some type of on site backup option, BUT less than 40% of businesses use an off site backup service to secure their data from flood, fire, or other natural disaster.  So...as you prepare to evacuate, you are now tasked with loading computers, external hard drives, or other backup devices and making sure that they have been properly shut down and are stored properly until they are needed during recovery.

Fortunately, if you are located in the greater Columbia, SC area, Seras can help with BOTH electronic AND hard-copy backup systems.

Things are never as simple as "sign me up" for the "standard package".  Each business utilizes varying methods of operation and generates varying sources of confidential, critical-operating, or proprietary data.  For example, a law firm may generate hundreds of boxes of closed paper files every year that need to be kept secure for a minimum of seven years.  The South Carolina bar has stated that electronic records retention is acceptable "as long as it does not affect the integrity of the client information".  However, simply scanning records and saving them on your server does not secure them from damage in a disaster such as flood or fire.

Seras can scan your records for you and the great news is that our IT division can help to provide a solution for the electronic data as well!

Here is another example: A financial management firm creates no paper records, and works with a web-based financial management software.  They also create a few in-house Microsoft Office documents within the office, but most critical information is maintained by their software provider.  This firm's situation is much different than the law firm's, and Seras understand this.  Two completely different disaster recovery plans are implemented based on strategic factors for business continuity.

For a free evaluation of your disaster recovery plan, contact us here today!

How To: Upgrade Memory in your Computer

Seras provides computer and IT support for businesses across the midlands of South Carolina. We are beginning a series of how-to videos which will help anyone at home or at the office. In this video, we will be tackling how to upgrade the memory in your computer.

Is your computer running slow? Do you have enough memory in your computer? If you increase your memory you will increase your computer's speed, especially when running multiple programs at the same time.

How to upgrade memory in your computer

[embed]https://youtu.be/F-haVEStOyU[/embed]

Contact us here to see how we can help your company with computer and IT support.

Pre-Storm Preparation

As I type this Hurricane Matthew is currently off the coast of Florida and headed towards the Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina coastline.  At Seras we provide computer services support to businesses across the Midlands. We want to make sure that everyone is safe and is prepared for Hurricane Matthew.  We have a few simple tips for those who are trying to prepare their computer equipment and other technological devices for the damaging effects of this storm.  

Pre-Storm Preparation

Back up all data and confirm that the backups are complete

Unplug all electronics that aren't critical

Move all electronics off of the floor

Unplug ethernet cables from the back of your computers, phones and fax machines

Move sensitive documents to an attic or a safe place

Have an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) battery backup and surge protectors

Make sure all mobile devices are fully charged

Make sure you have extra flashlights with fresh batteries

For more ways to protect yourself and/or your business from the damaging effects of a hurricane, check out this list here: Hurricane Preparedness.

We hope this helps and we are praying for the safety of the families of those effected by this storm and for the emergency responders who are working so hard to keep everyone safe.

Ryan Vincent Celebrates 1 Year Anniversary

Seras provides computer and IT support services to businesses around the Greater Columbia, SC area.  We also provide records management services, which are successful because of one person: Ryan Vincent.

A little Bit of Everything

Ryan is the service manager for our records division, but that doesn't limit him - he wears a lot of hats and is tremendously helpful with sales and marketing, fiscal planning, operational development, and even assists with specialized information technology projects.  Ryan exceeds customer expectations every time and will walk each customer through the document scanning process from start to finish.  Positive reviews and customer feedback continue to pour in about Ryan every week.

Before Seras, Ryan graduated from Columbia International University and has worked in the records management field for almost 10 years.  He spent time with a records storage and imaging company and with a large law firm managing open and closed files along with a little bit of everything else.  He has been a fantastic addition to the Seras Team!

How to Say Congratulations and Thank You

We have posted Ryan's picture in a recent Facebook post and asked for your comments.  Two weeks from the posting date, we will give Ryan $1.00 for every positive comment that is left about Ryan or Seras.