Backing up your computer is not an optional activity – eventually something will happen that will cause you to lose your computer data. But there is more than one way to back up your data, depending on your budget, the number of computers that require backup, and whether you use a network. The list below gives you a good idea of the backup options available:

1. Use floppy disks - Once upon a time, you could back up your entire computer on a few floppy disks. Those days are now long past -- you would need hundreds of floppies to back up even a medium-size hard disk on a modern PC. If you want to create separate backup copies of a few crucial files, floppies are still an option, but they are not a practical choice for regular backup duties.

2. Get a second hard disk - You can install a drive that is just as big as your existing hard disk and then copy, or "mirror," all of the data on the second drive. Hard disk prices have dropped considerably, and mirroring a disk makes it easy to replace lost data. But keeping all of your backup data on the same system makes it vulnerable to a hardware failure or power surge that could rob you of both your data and the backup.

3. Buy a portable disk drive - Portable disk drives such as the Iomega Zip and Jaz models now hold up to 2GB of data, allowing you to back up an entire hard disk on a few disks. You can also get external USB hard drives and CD Burners. Portable disks are getting cheaper, and you can access data on them almost as quickly as you can with a regular hard disk drive.

4. Use a tape backup - Backup systems that use magnetic tape cartridges are still the most economical onsite media choice for large backup jobs. Tape drives that support the Travan standard are the cheapest and easiest to use, although high-end tape drives that use Digital Audio Tape (DAT) are also a good buy. And if you are backing up multiple systems over a network, tape drives are an especially good solution because of their higher capacity, reliability and data transfer speed.

5. Use an online backup service - These services allow you to upload your data over the Internet to remote servers - if you need to restore lost data, you simply log on to the backup service and download your files. Internet backup services offer several benefits: they’re cheap, easy to use and very reliable. But Internet backups can be slow, especially if you are doing a full backup over a modem. This option is best for saving small files rather than a complete backup of your hard drive. Keep in mind also that if your computer or network goes down, you will need Internet access to retrieve your backup files. 6. CD Burners - A new generation of cheap compact disc recorders makes it easy to burn backup data onto CDs. Blank CD-Recordable (CD-R) media are cheap -- you can buy them in bulk for around a dollar each -- and a CD backup is extremely durable and easy to store. There are two drawbacks, however: CDs only hold 650MB of data, which means that you will need half a dozen of them to back up the average hard disk, and you can’t reuse CD-R media once you record on them. CD-RW disks are a little more expensive, but you can erase a CD-RW disk and reuse it hundreds of times. Most CD burners come with a program that let’s you create a backup of your hard drive spanning multiple disks.

7. DVD Burners – You can now purchase reasonably priced DVD burners that can hold 4GB of data per disk. DVD burners can also play and record CD’s. The most common types of DVD media are –R/-RW and +R/+RW. Be sure the media you buy is compatible with the burner you have. If you are thinking of buying a DVD burner I recommend getting one that is compatible with both formats.

If you only backup data that you save you must remember that you will have to reinstall all the programs you use. You must have the installation disk available to do this. Many times I have had customers that don’t have the installation disk and lose the programs. You may think you can avoid this by backing up the entire hard drive but if the drive is corrupted the backup of the drive will likely be corrupted also. Sometimes a clean reinstall is the only solution.

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