Continued from Choosing a Backup Solution: An In-Depth Look.

As I outlined in my previous article, there are many backup solutions available - but few that are designed to meet the requirements of virtually every computer user. Therefore, it’s important to establish your backup strategy ahead of time before choosing the backup solution that is right for you.

Whether it’s a short term or long term solution, and for home or office use - here are six key elements you can use in formulating your own Backup Strategy:

1. Determine The Frequency Of Your Backups
Most (but not all) backup solutions on the market offer an
automated scheduling mechanism. Depending on how often you use your
PC, scheduling a periodical backup is a great way to provide peace
of mind and ensure longevity of data. At work, my frequent
file-by-file backups are
automatically scheduled for every morning at 9AM; at home, I use a
drive imaging software to back up my entire hard drive once a week.

2. Choose Your Backup Medium
Deciding on the best media type for your backups should be
dependant upon how much data you wish to back up, how often your
backups are scheduled, and the shelf life of the medium.

For simple file-by-file backups (consisting of my utmost most critical files,
such as documents, address book, and e-mails), I choose to back up my data
to a USB memory drive. The USB drive is not only ultra-portable
(smaller than a pen and easily fits into my pants pocket) - it’s
also rewritable, relatively fast, virtually indestructible, has a
shelf life of 100+ years, and is
perfect for retaining small to medium-sized files.

When it comes time to back up my entire hard drive, however, I
choose to use an external CD-RW writer for my laptop. CD-RW media is
a perfect solution for large data backup because each disc is
rewriteable and holds 4.7GB of information; the media is relatively
inexpensive (at less than $1 per disc), and because the media type
is expendable, I can use as many discs as I want for my backups.

3. Always Check The Source Data For Errors
Before backing up any data, it is absolutely critical to ensure
that the integrity of the data is valid; otherwise, all your
backups will be in vein! If you’re backing up data on the hard
drive, scan the drive for file system errors (hint: use
CHKDSK for Windows XP, or
Scandisk for Windows 9x/Me); it
is also equally important to scan for viruses and Spyware using
anti-virus and anti-Spyware software.

4. Rotate your Backups whenever possible

[Continue Reading Six Key Elements For Any Backup Strategy]

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