Released: September 07, 2006

Don’t keep all your data in one stash

Source: By Damon Darlin, New York Times (Free Registration)

If you put stock in a recent survey from Symantec, the company behind the Norton line of computer protection software, 57 percent of computer users who store personal data on their PC’s conscientiously back it up.

Those people can feel very good about themselves, because the same survey found that a quarter of computer users have lost computer data like documents, photos and music files, most commonly when the computer crashes.

For all those people who are feeling pretty good about themselves, here is something else to worry about: what happens to those beloved family photos or your extensive music collection if something should happen to your PC and your backup? A fire, flood or earthquake could destroy the backup sitting inches from the PC.

For years, big companies have been storing their backed-up data in multiple locations to protect it from disasters. The data of consumers also has value, and it is not always just an emotional value — like 99-cent iTunes music files, or videos downloaded at $10 a pop. It is not hard to accumulate a few hundred dollars’ worth of content that needs protection.

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