Backup your data before you lose it.

Well if that statement sent shivers down your spine don't worry, it is easy to backup data and it's a good practice too. Just continue reading and you will be well versed with all the things that you need to do.

In today's world we are overloaded with information. Those who own music players, mobile phones, handheld gaming devices, digital cameras and are surfing the net like there is no tomorrow would have loads of information that they would not want to lose at any cost. Given the standard size of our current hard drives it would be akin to death if your hard drive crashed. Imagine all your family photos, vacation snaps, birthday videos, mp3s, games, movies, bookmarks, ebooks and other stuff going along with your busted hard drive never to be seen, never to be enjoyed again. If you want to avoid falling in such a predicament then I would advise you that you back up your data regularly.

You might be wondering what type of data one should backup and how? Well the answer to these questions is simple. Whatever data you feel is important to you and you can't do without it needs to be backed up. Such type of data includes but is not limited to

1. Ebooks, word files, scanned pdfs and other such documents like your outlook inbox, bookmarked URLs, passwords and login information, etc.
2. Photos of friends and family, wallpapers and other such images.
3. Songs, audio ebooks, saved voice chat conversations.
4. Vacation videos, birthday videos, movies, recorded TV shows, video albums, etc.
5. CDs and DVDs of games and software like Ms Office, Windows XP etc.
6. Cell phone data like phone numbers, contact details, SMSes and MMSes if any :D

The first category can be backed up easily as it contains only text data. Ebooks are often viewed using adobe acrobat reader but they are made up of text and some images. Bookmarks of sites are generally stored at C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator or your account name\Favorites and can be easily accessed. All the text type of data is generally small in size and one can easily gather them in one folder, compress that folder by using applications like Winrar or Winzip and the like and simply attach them to an email and send them to one's own email address. That way if you would happen to lose the text data you can always access your email account from anywhere using internet and easily decompress the attachment to get the data back. The reason for gathering them in one folder and compressing them is that they would stay together in one monolithic form and you would only have to compress and decompress once according to your need thereby saving you time and hassle of doing it for each file.

The second category contains image data. There are many free image sharing sites and networks like Flickr, Imageshack, etc. where you can upload your photos for free and access them as many times as you want. Also you can share your photos with family and friends via a simple link. If you want you can also collect all the images in one folder, compress them and mail them to yourself as an attachment but the size of the attachment might be more than the limit stipulated by most free emailing services. Hence it is advisable to upload them to any free image hosting site. Also there are some sites which pay their users to upload images and wallpapers but they are still in the nascent stage and have yet to prove that they pay.

The third and fourth category contains audio data and video data respectively and they have a greater density than the image or text data. Also there are no sites that would allow you to upload your mp3s and videos for free for an unlimited period of time. You can although zip them and upload them to some free file hosting sites like rapidshare, megaupload etc. but there is always a limit on the number of days you can keep them there. After a limited period of time either due to the set time limit or inactivity in the preceding days the files will be removed and you will lose them. Also due to their size the amount of time and bandwidth taken would be enormous and hence it is not advisable. Therefore to backup such type of data you need to burn them onto a CD or DVD using a suitable burning software. Most CD and DVD drives come with a free version of Nero CD/DVD burning software which you can use to burn audio and video data onto a blank CD/DVD disc.

The fifth category contains games and software isos or images that can run well into a number of CDs and DVDs. The only way to effectively back them up is to make a copy of each CD and DVD using the copy disc option in Nero. You would require equal number of CDs and DVDs as in the original. Also to increase your chances of having a copy that works it is advisable to share your game and software discs with friends who would obviously make a copy for themselves and you could borrow their copy if yours stops working. Though there is some ambiguity over the legality of making a backup copy of any intellectual property, you can always make one backup copy of a legally purchased content for personal use only.

The sixth category contains cell phone data which is mostly text but has been categorized differently as it is more vulnerable to loss and is more valuable than most of the other forms of data discussed above. Most cell phones these days come with a phone management software like the pc suite that comes with Nokia phones and the like. One can make use of these phone management software to synchronize one's phone with one's pc. Also you can copy the contents of your mobile phone like SMSes, MMSes, Contacts, etc on a daily basis or make a backup copy of your entire cell phone which can be installed in a couple of minutes if you happen to get a new cell phone or format your current one. The only hitch is that the backup copy works only with the phones belonging to the same company and with the current or higher models. Those who like to try out the newer handsets distributed by various companies make like to use the following method. This method involves making a backup copy of your SIM card. It is the SIM card which stores details such as the telephone number and address of your contacts and hence it needs to be backed up. (Note: Most cell phones have an option of storting this data onto phone memory and in such conditions the SIM card doesn't store anything) There are many hardware devices which keep a copy of your SIM in their memory. All you need to do is remove your SIM card from the phone and insert it into the backup device. The device stores all the SIM card's data in its own memory and it can be used to transfer data onto a blank SIM card within minutes. Such hardware devices can be found dime a dozen on online stores and don't cost much when compared to the importance of your invaluable data.

Additionally you can always use automated backup solutions like a magnetic tape drive or any network storage drive like Maxtor OneTouch or an external hard disk just in case your internal hard disk decides to give up on you. Also there are automated software like Second Copy, FileFort Backup, etc. which would allow you to relax as they take one the work of backing up your favourite files in an automated manner. These software, depending upon how you configure then, can either copy the entire direcory or copy only the changes made to the directoy once a day, or once a month or everytime you make changes to it and store the backup copy in another directory or on a network drive or burn them to a CD/DVD/Blu-Ray/HD-DVD or upload them to a remote FTP server. You only have to configure it once and it works away while you relax and spend some quality time away from your PC.