Backups
Backup media
There are several ways to back up your data. You have to decide what physical way you will backup. You can move files to a USB flash drive, CD or DVD, an external hard drive, or use online backup.
USB Flash Drive
These devices are terrific for transporting files because they are small and portable, and they can hold a large amount of data. They are relatively cheap. The disadvantage to these drives for backup is that they are not good for long-term reliable storage. Flash media eventually wears out; that is, they have a limited number of times that they can be written to. But they are fine in a pinch.
CD/DVD
CDs and DVDs are good long-term storage solutions. One disadvantage may be that if you use a CDR or a DVDR, they can only be written to one time, so if you do a backup, it's fine once you have it, but you can't add to it later on.
External Hard Drive
Here we go. This is part of my backup system. External hard drives are pretty inexpensive right now for the amount of storage space they provide. An external drive connects to your computer, and it shows up and can be used just like a drive that's installed internally. You can also overwrite files on the drive, so if you have a file already backed up on the external drive, and you make a change to the original, you can set it up so that the copy on the external drive is overwritten with the new version, or you can have it copy the new file over so you have two copies, one original and one updated. We'll talk more about setting up how your backups are done a little later.
Offsite Backup
This is the other part of my backup plan. Think about this for a minute. If you have your data backed up to an external hard drive that's sitting there on your desk, that's great. You have your files on your computer, AND you have copies of those files on the external drive. You're backed up. If your computer dies, you're all set. But wait... What if your house burns down? What if you have a tornado or an earthquake or a flood? Is your data safe? If something happens and your computer gets destroyed, it's likely that the external hard drive sitting there on the desk will be destroyed too.
There are ways around this. You can have multiple external drives and rotate them, unplugging one and taking it to work or some other location. That's a valid idea, and people do this.
Another way to have offsite backup is to do it online. Now keep in mind that this is easier if you have a reasonably fast Internet connection. This is not doable with dial-up. The way online backup works is to push your files out to another location on the Internet. There a several companies that offer ways to do this. I personally use Carbonite. I like Carbonite because it is entirely automatic. I set it up by telling the software what files I want backed up, and it does it automatically. It will even sense when I am using the computer, and will stop any backups until the computer is idle. Carbonite is not free, but it is very reasonably priced, and the peace-of-mind is amazing. You do want to make sure that whatever company you use encrypts your files so nobody can read them but you. Another company that offers online backup is Amazon. Yes, the online bookseller. They have a plan that is pretty cheap, and I hear that it is very effective. You also get the benefit of using Amazon's rock-solid infrastructure.