It used to be that you would backup everything on your computer by using floppy disks.Today, when one sound or graphics file can easily be larger than the capacity of a disk, it would be impractical to back up even you documents using floppies, let alone your applications.  Luckily there are better options including Zip disks, CD writers, tape drives, external hard drives and even online backup services.You can also compress your backed up files so that they take up less space.Take in the following tips and you will be able to find the media that is best suited to your needs.

1) Determine the quantity and file sizes you will be backing up.

2) Figure out the quantity and file sizes of any documents or other applications you want to archive permanantly to a backup device or removable media.

3) Plan for that amount to grow considerably further along.

4) Work out your budget for a backup storage device and removable media to use with it.

5) Consider if you plan to archive photographs or scanned files, require portability of the media or the drive itself, wish to record music for playback on some other equipment, or need ease of use.Weigh each of these these factors along with your need to back up your files.

6) Work out the cost per MB of media for each drive that you are considering.zip drives themselves are cheap but the disks aren't.

7) You may want to consider buying a 100MB zip drive if you need limited storage capability (less than 1GB).An external parallel port or USB Zip drive will provide the most versatility as well as offering portability.You should consider buying a 250MB Zip drive if your storage requirements are moderate (a few GB). 

8) Buy an internal zip drive if you will only use the drive for backup and you can install it yourself (installation fees add up).

9) Consider buying a CD-RW drive if your storage needs are more moderate and you will regularly back up more than 500MB of data.

10) Consider buying a Jaz drive or perhaps even a tape backup drive if you will be backing up large amounts of data on a regular basis.

11) Buy an external hard disk if you will need a lot of space, wont be keeping the old backups and dont need portability.

12)  If you require additional security, data protection and the ability to recover your data quickly then online data backup should be a serious consideration.

Imagine you have spent hours working on a report or another vital piece of work that has to be submitted tomorrow.All of a sudden, your hard disk crashes and all of the hours that you have put into crafting that vital document were all for nothing.Whatever you do, don’t join the naive many who say “it will never happen to me!” as probability will dictate that if you don’t take action, one day it inevitably will.  So how can you prevent such a catastrophe occurring?  This is precisely what data backup is all about.

Storing data is often the most important part of computer usage as it can often take months or years to accumulate relevant information.  As technology becomes more reliable, the risk of losing information has been significantly reduced however it would be needless to lose documents due to lengths that you yourself could have taken to prevent such an occurence. 

There are several formats of media that will allow your data to be backed up up.  Commonly used devices are external hard drives, CDs, DVDs, USB drives and for more sensitive information there are companies and services which will provide you with secure online data backup.  Whenever you backup data to an external device, said device should be stored in a different location from the original computer in case a fire or local electrical surge should damage the data backup hardware.

Data backup is most useful when done constantly and within reason.For example - if you are spending a long time working on a lengthy document, you should not wait a significant amount of time before saving your work.You should consider the effort that it would take to redo the work since the last save in the case of a crash and make a judgement call as to how often you should save your work.