Regular backups are vital insurance against a data-loss catastrophe. Unfortunately, this is a lesson that most people learn only from bitter experience. Developing a solid backup plan requires an investment of time and money, but the cost is far less than the often-impossible task of recreating data for which no backup exists.

Files can be lost from your computer in any number of ways—you might accidentally delete a file, or a virus might wipe one out. You can also have a complete hard drive failure. When a hard drive dies an untimely death, it's kind of like having your house burn down. Important personal items are usually gone forever—family photos, significant documents, downloaded music, and more.Thankfully it's a really simple process these days to back up your content to a second, separate location. By doing so, your files can be protected against viruses or complete computer failure. This makes it easy to retrieve and place them on a new hard drive and get going again.

Today, there are many options for backing up your content. You don't need any sophisticated equipment—you can use CDs, DVDs, external hard drives, flash drives, network drives, or even online storage like Windows Live SkyDrive. It might be a good idea to back up your data to multiple places. For example, you might choose to back up your content onto both an external hard drive and to an online storage site.

• Develop a is of all the folders and documents you need a backup
• Select the most convenient backup tool. If you have a large set of data to backup an external hard drive is the best choice. For old or historic data you can use CDs, DVDs, this is data that you don’t use regularly
• Select the software to help you manage the data backup. Windows comes with a backup tool, but there are other applications, (some for free) that can help you make a backup of all your files.
• Define regular intervals to back up your data
• Backup your data per schedule
• Test the backup data to ensure the backup is complete and that you can access it.

By following these simple steps you will be able to have a backup process that will give you some piece of mind by knowing that all the information you worked so hard is now secure.