Backup Your Important Data

Data backup is not only important to large corporations, but to the personal computer owner as well. We'll be focusing on the personal computer owner here.

Many people do not think about backing up their data. They should though. Recently someone came to me and asked me if I could recover data from their storage drive. It was their only copy. Unfortunately, I had to refer them to another service provider - someone who would have to perform some low level data recovery (expensive). This would not have had to happen if the person had kept a second copy of their data. There are a number of ways for people to back up their data.

One way is to buy some writable CDs or DVDs and burn data to them - of course you'll need hardware that can write to CDs and/or DVDs. These would probably be a good option for people with not too much data they want backed up. These are also nice because you can store them in a different location from the original data and thus should the computer be destroyed in some cataclysmic event, you still have a good copy.

Another option is to purchase an external hard drive. These usually require a USB hookup. They are a nice option and are generally much larger in size than a CD/DVD. They are also easily transportable and lightweight. Furthermore, you can read, write, and rewrite (write over) data - something most CDs/DVDs don't do. So, they can be a money saver and space saver when compared to CDs/DVDs.

Another option still is to purchase an internal hard drive. This will reside within your computer. It provides read/write/rewrite and generally large (and inexpensive) storage capacity. These tend to be less expensive than a similar external and faster. However, they are less mobile than the two previous options. Still, you'd need to know a bit more about hardware in order to find out which drive to purchase and install, making the other two options more user friendly.

I think all options have their strong points, it boils down to what you require or desire. Bottom line, it's a good idea to have some backup strategy, because you never know how valuable your data is until it's gone.