Anyone who has been around computers for very long at all has at least heard horror stories of not backing up data. It’s a given. Hard drives are not immortal – they can become corrupt, they can crash, they can die. There are data recovery services which can recover almost anything from a hard drive, but most home users, and many companies, could not afford these services. Best to just spend the minimal extra time and back it up in the first place.

For a home user, the easiest way to back up data these days is onto a CD. Most computers these days come with CD drives, and to take the extra step to copy or “save as” data onto a writeable CD is well worth the effort. It pays for itself the first time you have a hard drive go corrupt or crash. If you want to get more fancy, you can hook up an external hard drive to your computer, and simply back up all your data to it daily or weekly, or you can install another hard drive internally and do the same thing. Instructions for doing so can be found at many sites all over the web.

When you get into a net working situation, such as that found in a company, the importance of backing up of course becomes more vital. You can lose valuable company records, transaction data, customer data and more, just by being careless and not backing up.

Many companies still use the old tried-and-true method of backing up to tape, and storing the tapes somewhere off-site where it is safe should something happen to the building. The larger the site, usually the more complicated the backup scheme. Really big companies have separate networks dedicated to data storage and backup, and some even have robots which will load up backups when requested so older data can be quickly accessed.

Some companies also have a backup server, a server which literally duplicates the company’s main server. If the main server for some reason goes down, the backup server can be made the main server and the company can stay up and running.

Another method for both home and corporate sites which has evolved over the years is backing up to a Web site. The data is encrypted is such a way as it is not accessible by anyone except the user, and there are numerous sites out there which will back up your data for a small fee.

Now, what data should be backed up?

For an individual user, the answer is simple: Anything you care about! The way to judge is, how would you feel if whatever-it-is is lost? If you feel that twinge of grief just thinking about it, you should back it up.

For a company, the answer is a little more complex, but still runs along the same lines: What information, if lost to the company, would put that company at risk? Transactions are obviously important, as are customer records, financial data, contracts, and possibly quotes. Much of the time this type of information is contained in a database, and the data from the database is normally backed up daily.