Backing Up is NOT Optional

Backing up your computers is not an optional task. If you lose your company's data, you could also lose your business. There is more than one way to back up your data, depending on your or your company's budget, and the number of computers that require backup. If you have multiple systems, consider also whether you use a network and if you have a server. The six choices below give you a good idea of the backup options available:

Use Floppy Disks
Get a second hard disk
Buy a portable disk drive
Use a tape backup - for large amounts of data, this is the way to go. Tape drives from 20 Gigabytes (GB) up to 320 GB are available
Use an online backup service
Make a CD-RW / DVD backup disk

Which is better: Local or Network Backups?

If your business uses a network, you will have to decide whether to back up all of your computers over the network or to back up each computer separately. In most cases, you should back up all the computers on a network along with your file servers; that way, you can purchase a single high-end backup system for your entire network. It's much more expensive to buy a separate backup unit for each computer, and it's a waste of time to lug a portable backup drive from one computer to another.