Is it secret? Is it backed up?

After a week of what feels like constant backing up, my enthusiasm for this worthy but dull task is certainly at a low ebb. However let's not forget why we back up (and we do, don't we?):

• to keep important data safe and not all in one place
• so there's a safety net in case of a small disaster. Remember multiple copies are better than one.

Certainly in our line of work (we're web designers donchaknow) it would be a major headache if we lost our work - the vast majority of which is of course stored electronically.

How do you go about backing up? Well, if you're a home user or a small business absolutely do invest in a couple of external hard drives. Back up to one hard drive one week and then the other hard drive the following week. Rinse and repeat.

You'll now have a copy on your computer's hard drive, at most a week old back up on one external hard drive and if that fails a two week old back up on another.

The next step up for the small business office is what's called network attached storage (or NAS). These are essentially external hard drives with knobs on (steady!) that act as mini-servers. It's not too eye wateringly expensive to get one of these with room for two hard drives. Set these hard drives up so that the data is mirrored (i.e. the data is copied to both hard drives) and you have an instant back up.

For extra points do a weekly back up to another external hard drive and Bob's your uncle.

If you are backing up to multiple hard drives then do store them in different places. Making loads of back ups and then keeping them all in the boot of your car won't do you any good if your car is stolen!

If you're a larger business then I suspect your IT and backing up is much more sophisticated and I should be asking you questions!