Finally, you may want to consider remote backup. This consists of uploading your data every night to a web server that keeps a copy on hand for a nominal fee. The great advantage of this is that your data isn’t stored at your location, so if there’s a natural disaster or a fire, your data will still be fine. The problems with this method are that your data is probably on someone else’s hard drive, and if you don’t pick a good company, you could be in deep trouble. Ideally you want a company with a fast connection, secure backup, and small monthly fees. This brings us to the second problem with remote backup; there are monthly fees. This alienates a lot of home users; who needs extra bills? Nevertheless, if you can find a good trusted service and you don’t mind a few bucks a month, remote backup is a pretty strong option.
The Joy of Backup
Try loading the data that you have backed up and see if it has everything that you need. Think of basic things like work related documents, but don’t forget about important emotional keepsakes like pictures, and ask anyone else using your computer if they have anything important that they need to back up. There’s nothing worse than forgetting a crucial file when your computer goes down.
If you can, keep your backup medium in a different location than your computer, and have mulitiple backups of important files. If possible, it also helps to check to make sure that the copies of your files on your backup are readable; occasionally, a file copy can go bad, resulting in file corruption.
With your data safe, you can sleep a lot easier, and what’s more important, you can laugh at the poor souls who weren’t as responsible as you. Just remember that all hard drives eventually fail, and if you take unnecessary risks you may find yourself in a corner, slowly rocking back and forth and murmuring quietly about your Excel files.