By Jim Farmer

Whether you're a webmaster or just a casual laptop user, regular data backups have become an essential element of life in our increasingly data-driven culture. Many of us are now reliant on the information our computers contain but it's often not until a hard drive fails or a laptop is stolen that we suddenly realize just how much we depend on our data.
   
Regularly backing up your important data is a lot like keeping an extra set of keys on hand. You hope you'll never need to use them, but they can be a lifesaver if you lose the originals. While often just an inconvenience for individual users, data loss can paralyze many modern businesses.
   
Commonly backed up files include documents, email archives, contact lists, photo galleries, and web browser bookmarks. Spreadsheets and records of any kind are another no-brainer. Webmasters should also be sure to back up all databases, as well as preference files for important applications. If you make a living with your computer, it's often wisest to simply mirror your entire hard drive.
   
As hard drives and applications have increased in size, floppy diskettes have given way to CDs and DVDs for small backups. CDs are useful for transporting small files to new locations, but Allen Sowles, director of technology at Lathem Time Corporation in Atlanta, feels that DVDs represent the best choice, saying, “CDs work but can become tedious — depending on the size of the material being saved.”
   
Robotic backup tape archives, mainframes, and holographic optical discs can be good choices for some businesses, but they are too expensive for general consumers. External hard drives are the most sensible backup solution for most people, but online storage in the “data cloud” is increasingly being touted as the way of the future. You should always store a backup off-site whenever possible, in case of fire or other disaster. Online storage is an easy way to accomplish this.
   
It's essential to establish and adhere to a regular backup schedule. Cyberscrub has some good suggestions. For instance, those with minimal files to back up should do so hourly or daily. Larger backups between 5GB to 100GB should be done daily or weekly. If you're mirroring an entire hard drive, weekly or monthly backups are recommended. People who generate terabytes of data daily (observatories, research labs, Mormon genealogists, etc.) might have to make do with monthly or yearly backups, triaging the most vital data for more frequent backups.
   
Backups are simple and can happen in the background while you sleep or work. Once you set a regular schedule, your computer will take care of the rest.
   
Apple's OS X Leopard includes an automated backup utility called Time Machine that can take snapshots of your configuration, track changes, and maintain up-to-date copies of all your files. Your backup destination can be an external or network drive, a local server, or a remote server. Earlier this summer, Apple introduced Mobile Me, a mobile data service that includes 20GB of online storage space. The perfect partner for Time Machine is Apple's Time Capsule, a wireless network hard drive with 1TB of storage. It also serves as an Airport Extreme N base station and can serve high-speed wireless access and wireless printing services to multiple computers while keeping them all backed up. Allen Sowles also recommends Western Digital's line of external hard drives such as the My Book World Edition, a cross platform drive that provides network storage, remote data access, and scheduled backups.
   
If you're willing to spend a little more money initially, the Drobo automated hard drive array is one of the best available backup options for almost any user. The Drobo can accommodate up to four internal hard drives of any speed or capacity. Your best bet is to keep them matched, with four fast 1TB drives being ideal. Intelligent hard drive arrays are nothing new, but Drobo is unique because of the way it manages your drives and data invisibly and without intervention. As you go about your normal activities — saving, deleting, and moving files about as you always have — Drobo keeps multiple copies of your data spread out across the drives. If you have 4TB of physical space, Drobo's magic juggling act will take up about 1TB. The amazing thing is that even if one or two of your drives fail simultaneously and fry all of their data, you probably won't lose a thing — thanks to Drobo's innovative use of mirroring, compression, and file management. The odds are pretty slim that you'll ever lose more than two drives at once, which makes Drobo one of the easiest and most reliable solutions for general purpose backups.

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