You often hear that you should back up your data, and the risks you take if you neglect to do so. Even companies that sell data recovery services caution us to backup or perish. It sounds like those earlier times when people who didn’t give a portion of their wages to the clergy had their future cast in hell. But those days are over and you can safely decide what data you want to backup and what you could care less about. However, I think backing up everything on your hard drive is a waste of time and space.
But how do you decide what to back up? That is your decision, however, let me offer a suggestion. Backup any data that you will need to prove a point, confirm ownership of assets, outline your legal rights and duties, and the promises from the political party you voted for in the last election.
In other words, it depends on what’s important to you, and could include photos, work projects, schoolwork, your address book, any personal documents, music collection and e-mail archives and some software applications.
You have a couple of ways to back up your computer. The most cost-effective for the home computer is to buy a CD burner and some blank disks and just burn (copy) the files onto the blank disks. If you run a business, you could buy storage space on a server that is off-site and update the entire computer network every so often. This adds more security to your customer lists, accounts receivable and other important data.
If the system fails or your drive crashes, you will have a copy of your records to fall back on. Also, taking the time every week to back up your new data will save you both time and money.