Don't take chances. When disaster strikes you'll be grateful you did a back-up of your precious data.

Top Ten Tips.

1. Develop a backup plan
Determine how often you need to back up, select a drive to back up
to, and choose a backup software you can rely on.

2. Back up often
If your files aren’t backed up, you can’t restore them after a disaster. Make sure to back up frequently. Most people should back up daily. Automate your backups. Schedule your backups to run when it’s most convenient for you, at night, on weekends, or when your computer is least active.

3. Back up more than just documents
Don’t limit backups to just certain files, you’ll inevitably need one that wasn’t backed up. When disaster strikes, you can restore your entire hard drive in just minutes.

4. Perform incremental backups
Backing up only new or changed files to your original backup set gives you a history of your files so you can restore your hard drive exactly as it was at the time of your last backup.

5. Make several copies
To increase the degree of data protection, make three different sets of your data and keep one set in a secure offsite location. Even an old copy is better than no copy at all.

6. Verify your backup
You need confidence in your backups. Make sure your backup software has full read-back verification. And try restoring a few files yourself, just in case.

7. Take advantage of compression
Save yourself time and money by squeezing up to twice as many files onto your backup media.

8. Use good hardware and software
Fast, reliable, easy-to-use hardware and software is simply the best backup software for any storage device. Ensure it will back-up and restore with the minimum of fuss.

9. Don't procrastinate
Far too many new people lose data. Develop your backup plan now!

10. Remember, the purpose of backup software is to restore.
If you can’t get back what you’ve lost, the time and money you’ve spent backing up was wasted!