Protect Your Data
You want to make sure you don't loose all those cherished photos, valuable emails and other personal information you need, not to mention any financial and business data, or even study materials (and don't think it cannot happen to you - it can!).
The bad guys out there would love to lay their dirty little paws on any personal information and sensitive data they can use to their own advantage.
So there are two good reasons to protect your data!
The first steps, of course, are to Protect Your PC, Protect Your Internet and Protect Your Privacy. This takes care of the bad guys. Next, you want to create and implement a data backup strategy for your own benefit.
Backup refers to making copies of your data so that these additional copies may be used to restore the original after a data loss event. These additional copies are typically called "backups" and are usually stored separately from your computer. Backups are useful primarily for two purposes:
- To completely restore to a previous state, following a disaster (called disaster recovery);
- To restore small numbers of files on your computer, after they have been accidentally deleted or corrupted (or maliciously, such in the case of viruses).
There are many ways of backing up your data:
- CD-Rs and CD-RWs are inexpensive and allow many people to backup all their important data onto a single disk. Or you can use as many as are required, by "spanning" the backup over several disks.
- Some people use a second internal hard drive to backup their data, and this generally works well. But just remember that the second hard drive is part of your computer and could be destroyed or damaged in the same disaster that befalls your PC! Or if the PC is stolen, so is this HD!
- An external hard drive is an excellent choice and they are very affordable these days. If the external HD's capacity is the same or greater than that of your computer, it's also possible to make a complete backup of your whole system. If possible, try and keep this HD as far away from your PC as possible, so the same disaster doesn't destroy them both.
- Online backup is another great strategy as this negates the need for disks or additional hard drives, and as your data is safely stored offsite, it can be recovered should a complete disaster happen onsite. Online data storage is generally cheap nowadays and if you have a broadband internet connection, it's easy to recover your files whenever you want. Two great and very popular online backup services are Mozy
and Carbonite
.
In addition to the backup method you choose to use, you'll also need software to schedule and maintain regular backups. Windows Vista and some other operating systems already include such backup software. Or you can check out some excellent freeware backup programs here. Another good program is Acronis True Image that allows you to back up all your important information very easily. Online backup services commonly provide the software that works with their system for free.