So you are saying to yourself, ”I keep all my data on an external hard drive, so I should be safe from crashes, right?”

Not necessarily.

Data backup is one of the most important things a person should do in relation to their computer, but it is one of the most often overlooked things as well. One should always have important data in at least two locations at all times. This means it should be in a primary location where you usually access it, as well as a secondary backup location. The primary location can be on your computer’s main hard drive, or it can be an external drive. No matter where the primary location, you should back up the data to a secondary location. The secondary location can be another local hard drive, internal or external, or it could even be online.

The reason that keeping your data on an external hard drive is not safe from crashes is that it is still only stored in one location. An external hard drive can fail just as easily as an internal hard drive, regardless of usage, age or any other factors. Hard drives can fail at any moment for any or seemingly no reason. An external drive is no more protected from failure than an internal drive. Usually both the primary and backup drives don’t fail at the same time so backing up locally works most of the time.

Windows Vista includes data backup functionality built in. Norton 360 offers another level of local backup if desired. Time Machine for Mac OS X Leopard offers data backup to external drives as well. Most external hard drives come with at least a trial version of data backup software.

If you are worried about a natural disaster, robbery, or some other catastrophic failure that could render your primary and secondary data stores useless, you may want to consider an online data backup option. Online data backup is included in a yearly subscription to Norton 360 on the PC. It is also part of the recently introduced MobileMe, from Apple, available for both PC and Mac.  www.Mozy.com and www.rsync.net are two other popular online backup services.  Mozy is easy to use on both PC and Mac, while rsync offers more advanced features for those that need them.

There are generally two ways that your data can be backed up. First it can just be copied to another location, where is can be accessed normally like you would any other file. The second maintains your data in a proprietary data format that keeps track of new files, changes to existing files, as well as deletions. The second format often backs up quicker and can be more thorough when versions of files are needed, not just the latest one. Some programs offer both ways of backing up, others only offer one. The first seems most user-friendly. To use the second one effectively, make sure to use reputable backup software that will be available in the future. If your system fails, you may need to reinstall the backup software to retrieve your data if it was backed up using the second method. Online data backup systems generally backup using the second method but present your data as if it were backed up using the first method. The customer doesn’t see the back end storage method.

When backing up data, make sure to restore from the backup once in a while to make sure it is actually working. By doing this, you know that everything is working like it should.

If you don’t backup and the worst happens, there are data recovery services that can get back all but the worst cases of lost data. This service does not come cheap, running from just a couple hundred dollars to several thousand.

However you decide to backup your data, you should do so as soon as possible and as thoroughly as possible. Baby pictures, wedding videos, vacation memories as well as financial information, school and work documents could disappear at any moment. It is your responsibility to backup your data in a way that you understand and can commit to.

I welcome your feedback below.

Bryan can be reached at datilus@gmail.com

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