I have been loosing sleep because I did not have a proper backup of my pictures.  Really, I was quite worried.  I knew two people who had their hard drives crash, one was able to recover her stuff, the other, not so lucky.  Something had to be done. 

So for Christmas I bought myself an external hard drive.  A Western Digital "My Book" 750gb hard drive to be exact.  I got a great deal on it.  I was quickly able to copy all my picture files, music files, video files and all my other document files over in just minutes and barley made a dent in the hard drives capacity!  Finally I am able to sleep at night again!

 
 

Working from home presents many challenges and opportunities.  One of the challenges I am going to open with is backup.  When you work at at office, someone else looks after backing up the office network.  it just happens and you don't have to think about it.

At home, this should be your number one priority.  Backup isn't for if your hard drive crashes it is for when your hard drive crashes.  Because it is going to happen at some point. 

In the last few days three people I know hard drives have crashed.  They were all able to retrieve their data, but it wasn't easy and they had to bring in professional help.

this subject is dear to my heart at the moment because I need to back up my computer.  its not that I haven't backed up at all, I back up my client files to 2 gb flash drives.  Its my pictures that worry me.  I have 16gb of pictures that aren't backed up.

I have been looking at online backup systems and desk top external hard drives.  Both have pros and cons.  Pros of an online back up are that you can set it and forget about it and all your files are backed up automatically all the time.  There is a monthly or yearly fee, with is neither a pro nor a con because no matter what you do it will cost you.  Cons of an online backup is that this type of service is still in its infancy and raises lots of questions about security. 

There are pros and cons with desktop or portable external hard drives as well.  Cons are that if someone breaks into your house and steels your computer chances are they are going to steel your external hard drive too, same if your house burns down.  Though I think the odds of someone breaking into your house are greater than your house burning down. Another con is that you have to remember to actually do the backup.  One of my dear friends keeps thier hard drive in a safe...hmmm, wonder how often they take it out and back up?  Pros of the desktop external hard drive - you have control of your own data, and the frequency of backups.

Right now I am swaying towards the external hard drive backup, the question now is how big do you go?