Loosing it all! All your data that is.

(Photo: Courtesy of DigitGeek)

I cannot stress enough the importance of backing-up your data. Let me say that again. I CANNOT STRESS THE IMPORTANCE OF BACKING-UP YOUR DATA!!! Got it? Get it? Good!

I can tell you stories upon stories of people have lost it all, everything, every file lost for eternity! Now you don’t have to have a server or large mainframe to do back up your files. The solution is simple, easy, and cost effective. Buy an external hard drive. They are cheap in comparison to loosing all of your data. I purchased the one (similar to photo) I use for $80 after a mail-in rebate. Find one you like, buy it, hook it up and save everything on your computer you feel is of any importance to you.

The methods for backing-up are many, but my favorite is simply to drag and drop. Yes, that’s it! Just drag your folders from your computer and drop them onto your external hard drive. It may take a couple hours depending on your folder sizes, but start it at night before you leave your desk and it should be finished by the time you get back.

What I do every two weeks is create a file named with the date on my external hard drive, then simply select the files I wish to save and drag them over to my external hard drive to copy them as a backup. Yes, it IS that simple.

As an additional precaution, once each month, I do what I call a FULL back-up, saving all my sent emails, tasks, notes and files; not program files like Microsoft, those will not copy over as they spread over many areas of your computer as drivers and executable files. This can all be done again, by simply selecting those items and dragging them to copy over to your external hard drive.Your files will forever be safe and sound.

Back it up baby!