I’m somewhat of a geek as you all know. I like networking, security, the interwebs, and generally all things geeky. One thing I find annoying (mostly because it isn’t fun), is backup.

No, not sleeping on your stomach – making copies of your files on a different hard drive, DVD, or even CD so that if your main computer or workstation dies in some way, you can recover in a relatively easy manner.

There are many, many ways to backup your files. There are even many different levels of backup. You could just backup your Quicken files, or your whole operating system. The level you choose is up to you, but don’t ever lose data just because you failed to prepare. Storage is cheap. Backup is easy. Don’t lose out.

A story – Some friends of mine own a local printing shop. I had chit-chatted a lot with them, and suggested that they backup their files (art, billing, etc.). In the end, they had not started backing up files a couple of months later, and then their main drive died. No warning, just a tiny puff of smoke and no working drive. About $2,000 later, they had all of their files back from a company that specializes in data recovery.

The moral of the story is… back up your files before it’s too late.

As a general public service, I’m going to provide a few different ideas and solutions. Take them for what you will, and use what you can. Email or comment with questions and concerns.