Imagine this: you turn on your computer, and it doesn’t start. It freezes, you get the dreaded BSOD, it goes in a reboot loop, or who knows what else. Chances are your harddrive is dead and all your data is lost. If I lost all my music, movies and text documents, that wouldn’t be the end of the world. It would suck bigtime, but it wouldn’t be a complete disaster. But if I lost all my game development related material, that would be something entirely else. If that happened, I would simply get a heart attack. No kidding, I would just collapse! So, yeah, backups are pretty important! Let’s take a look at some methods.
First of all, burning everything on dvd-r discs. All computers have writers, so no special hardware is needed. The problem is, you have to remember to make regular backups, and you’ll either burn through dvd-r discs at quite a rate, or you’ll have to use rewritable discs, wich aren’t that fast. It probably won’t take long before you’ll start skipping backups. Another problem: optical media don’t have a very long lifespan. Depending on the quality of the media and the way it’s stored, they can become unreadable in a year! Avoid heat and sunlight as much as possible. The best way to store them is in a vacuum sealed plastic bag in the freezer.
So, optical media have quite a lot of disadvantages. External harddrives are a better solution. With the right software, it’s possible to schedule automatic daily backups so you don’t have to worry about it. This way, your data is quite safe from computer failure, but not from things like fire or theft. If you want to play it really safe, you should store the disk in a fireproof safe.
Another option is a raid array. A raid array consists of multiple harddrives that can be linked to either combine several drives into one drive (striping mode), or automatically backup one drive on another one (mirroring mode). If one drive fails, you always have a backup on the other one. Since this uses internal drives, you can’t store it in a safe, though.
Probably the most state of the art backup system consists of a NAS-system with a raid setup. A NAS (network attached storage) system is a storage system that’s connected to a network. It’s essentially an external drive that uses a LAN connection instead of USB or eSATA. It can also have a raid setup in case of drive failure. And if you really want to be safe, you can place it in a locked room with automatic fire extinguishers! Not really something for home use, but quite common in a professional environment. If you plan on using a NAS system, you’ll also need a fast network connection. Wireless or powerline connections won’t do it!
A final option are online backups. This is quite interesting for home users, since you don’t need additional hardware. There’s quite a lot of online backup services, many of wich are free or very cheap. Mozy, for example, offers two gigabytes of storage for free, and comes with automatic backup software. The only thing that’s needed is a good internet connection. For me, this is not an option, since my ISP has severe restrictions on upload speed and bandwidth. They claim you don’t need this unless you’re into illegal filesharing, wich might have been true five years ago but is total crap today. Anyway, they are the only cable provider where I live, so I don’t really have a choice.
So, what’s the best solution? I’d say an external harddrive, combined with online backup if your internet connection is good enough. If you can afford it, a NAS system with raid setup is the most secure option. And, just to make sure, an occasional backup on a dvd-r also never hurts.