Back+It+Up,+Baby

We've all heard this a million times: Back up your data. Back up your data. Back up your data.

Yep. Back it up, baby. There are lots of options when it comes to backing up your data, and your data include
 * personal pictures
 * financial data
 * work files

Your options include optical disc (CD and DVD), USB/thumb drive/jump drive, external hard drives, and cloud computing. (For more information on cloud computing, click on the link to the page with the same name.) A benefit of backing up data on CD or DVD is that it's not easy to destroy them. However, if they're scratched, that could be a big problem. USB/thumb drives/jump drives are great because they're small and can hold as much as 32 GB. In my experience, they tend to be less "fussy" about being shifted from one operating system to another. The trouble with those little drives is that they are little and easy to lose. Plus, most of us wouldn't want to lose our most treasured pictures and files. External hard drives are a good option. One of the downsides of these drives is that most of them having moving parts. Solid state drives are on the market, but they haven't caught on, perhaps due to their high cost relative to external drives that have moving parts. With all of the storage systems mentioned so far, they can be destroyed in a fire or stolen. That would not be good.

Cloud computing offers an off-site, or remote backup option, managed by a company that supposedly managed by experts whose duty is to keep your data secure. One company is called Carbonite