STOP! BACK UP!

It's one those chores that most people don't get around to, or choose to avoid. It's an added expense and, like most insurance policies, may never be used. But, like driving without insurance or living in an uninsured homed, if you're not making regular backups, you're potentially risking a lot more headache and financial inconvenience that the policy would have bought you.

A large number of people do not back up their computer(s) on a regular basis. Many don't back up their computer(s) at all. Though the numbers are hard to quantify exactly, a survey in February 2009 by Kabooza suggests that as many as 80% of people do not back up their "home" PC regularly with 50% not doing a back up at all.

For many of use self-employed, the definition of "home" and "business" computers grays a little.

What's additionally troubling is that over 50% of survey respondents reported having lost "valuable" data from their home computer and still not done anything, begging the question: did anyone learn anything?

Some of the perceived nonchalance is possibly due to some ignorance as to where "data" is actually stored. With web-based services such as email and photo albums, a great deal of "stuff" is stored online. But a significant is stored locally too and invariably, only at crunch time, the quantity and value fully appreciated.

I'm glad to see that several of the PC manufacturers are offering backup services as part of new PC packages. As with security software, these are sometimes offered as additional options at purchase time. Personally, I think they should be given away, but it's not up to me.

With hard drives getting increasingly larger, we're storing more and more information and media on our hard drives. If you're use an MP3 player, you probably have a copy of your music on your PC. Many people have hundreds of photos. Add to that homework, research papers, tax returns, resumes, bookkeeping data, email (especially if you use Outlook)...did I miss anything?....and you have potential for disaster.

Backing up costs money. Whether you use an external hard drive or an off-site web-based solution such as Carbonite or DataDepositBox, it will cost you something to make a copy of your most important files.

The question is: what is the cost of not doing so?