If there is one thing that people should do, it is to backup their files as they go. Unfortunately while computers and systems are generally highly helpful, they are also by their very nature quite unreliable. And even if your computer never breaks down, then there’s always the chance that they might get dropped, or stolen, or burned in a house fire…

In short you can’t account for every situation, but what you can do is use your common sense and take preventative measures.

Here is how to back up your files…

Physical Storage

It’s a good idea to back up your files on some kind of physical storage at least weekly. Physical storage means things like portable hard drives and things like memory USB drives. By storing some files on these things you will have something physical that you can use to keep your files safe. It could happen…

If you want something a little more portable to back your files up with then how about using your smart phone – which probably has a few gigabytes worth of storage, and you always have access to it.

However this isn’t entirely a suitable method for backing up all of your files, as you will find that it takes a lot of time to back up your files this way.

Online Storage

At the same time it’s also a good idea to look into online storage methods, and there are many of these you can use in order to keep your files safe. For instance it is possible to use online storage services that will back up all your files automatically when you connect, which is a great for the absent minded.

These dedicated backup services can be expensive. If you are a web entrepreneur then the files you will care most about backing up will be things like word documents and .HTML files – which are very small. You can easily back up these files by simply dropping them onto the server which you use for your website.

Meanwhile you also have a huge amount of storage that comes free with your e-mail. Google Drive provides 5 gigs of free storage, you could also e-mail your documents to yourself and then mark them as starred e-mail which will enable you to easily find them.

Free cloud services that you can use for backing up your files are iCloud (if you own an Apple product), Google Drive or DropBox.

James Delurno is a tech blogger and software expert. Currently he writes content for one of the best registry cleaner program’s website and blog.

Get an extra gig of space by figuring out this scavenger hunt by Dropbox. I went through this scavenger hunt and as you finish different stages you get more storage. By the time you finish the whole thing you will get 1 Gig of extra storage. I use Dropbox for syncing my files and backing up my files as well as sharing files with my friends.

Start your scavenger hunt here:

Dropquest 2011 Scavenger Hunt

If you can’t figure out some of the cryptic puzzles you can always check the walkthrough here.

DoubleSafety 4.3

DoubleSafety is an automatic backup program. You can store backups on your hard drive or use a local area network, send them to an FTP server or write to a CD or a DVD. You can also automatically encrypt data using the 256-bit AES algorithm. Get it for free, today only.

Sandisk® is coming out with a USB drive that has backup capabilities without installing any software on your system. Available March 2009.

* Simple: Back up at the touch of a button; no software installation is needed
* Portable: Now it’s easier than ever for you to keep your personal business files secure and available wherever you need to go
* Secure: Protect your data to limit unwanted access with password protection and strong AES hardware encryption for drive security
* Choose the right capacity for your needs, from 8GB, 16GB, 32GB and 64GB*
* Trust the minds behind flash memory to keep your files safe and secure with a five-year limited** warranty

* 1 gigabyte (GB) = 1 billion bytes. Some capacity not available for data storage.
** Five-year warranty in regions not recognizing “limited”.
† Product available in March 2009

Cobian Backup

Excellent Open Source Backup tool

Features

Cobian Backup is a multi-threaded program that can be used to schedule and backup your files and directories from their original location to other directories/drives in the same computer or other computer in your network. FTP backup is also supported in both directions (download and upload).

Cobian Backup exists in two different versions: application and service. The program uses very few resources and can be running on the background on your system, checking your backup schedule and executing your backups when necessary. Cobian Backup is not an usual backup application: it only copies your files and folders in original or compressed mode to other destination, creating a security copy as a result. So Cobian Backup can be better described as a “Scheduler for security copies”.

Cobian Backup supports several methods of compression and strong encryption.

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