Backingup yourdatais a crucial part of being a PC user, whetheryou use yourcomputerfor work or you use it for play.If it is a work computer, thenyou cannot afford to loseany of yourpreciousfiles- this couldmean the difference between getting a paycheck and missingan importantdeadline! If you use it justas a personalmachine,thenyou stilldon’twantto loseyourdata- thinkof all of the family photos, music files,videos, games and morethatyou couldlosein the eventof a computerfailure.

Manythingscan cause dataloss.A computercrash is the most common.To keepyourdatasafein the eventthatyourcomputercrashes,thenyou needto make sureeverythingimportantis safeand soundsomewhere thatis not actually on the computer. A harddrivecan sometimes be recovered,but not always – it is bestto haveall of yourimportantfilessavedto somethingelse.Popularbackupmethods;include CD and DVD ROMs, jump or flashdrives, and external harddrives. Backingup yourdatato a CD or DVD is easy – simplyburnyourimportantfilesto a disc and it’s done.Makesureyou label eachdisc clearly,though, so you knowwhat you’veput on them, otherwise,you may findyourself;latershuffling through a pile of discs to finda single file – and no one wants;to do that!

If you havea lot of stuffto backup, thenyou mightwantto stay away fromCD or DVD backupdiscs,as you couldend up with a ton of discs and stillnot be done.This is particularly trueif you havelargevideo filesthatneedsaved- theymay not always fit on one disc, and thenyou are in trouble.If you havea lot of dataor many largesizedfiles,thenlookto a jump or flashdrive, or an external harddriveas the solution.Jumpor flashdrivesare smallUSB powereddrivesthatyou can save yourfilesto. They range in size(in termsof how muchdatatheycan hold, not physicalsize!) fromsmalllike256 MB to muchlarger,like8 gigsor more. Theseare idealfor transferring filesfromcomputerto computer, especiallyif you go froma home PC to a work PC and backagainwhile usingthe same file,but theycan alsowork as a backupmethod, if you so choose. To backup all of yourdata, though, you may needa handful of drives, so it may be betterto justgo with an external harddriveand save the jump drivebackupmethodfor an emergency.

Externalharddrivesare basically a big harddrivethatisn’t connectedto yourcomputerexceptwhen you hook it up. Simply copy all of the filesyou wantover and you’re done.Whenbuying an external, lookfor one thathas its own fansor othercoolingmechanism, though, to make sureit stays safeand sound, as overheatingcan cause the driveto fail, and thenwhere you willbe?

Justremember: in the eventof a computerfailure, you do not wantto loseany of yourpreciousdata, regardless of what it mightbe. Takingthe time to backup yourfilesnow willsave you a lot of grief and hasslelater!