There is personal data stored on the hard drives and in memory chips that is essential to us. These include personal photos, songs and video files, address book, personal correspondence and emails and business, tax and other financial records. These have a lot of value for the person they belong to. Like all other data even this data is susceptible to being lost or erased. If not a great loss, it can at least be a big inconvenience. The only definite way of preventing this loss is to have a proper data backup.

Not all the data we have on our computer or other digital media can have a backup. Hence, it is important to first identify the important data and then make a copy of it. It is also important to check the backup that we have created to ensure that we have a good copy with us.

1. Personal Photos: We need to backup our personal photos like those of wedding, child birth, birthdays, holidays and trips and family gatherings. These make a precious data and are lifetime treasures. Also, with the advent of the digital camera, very few people maintain a hard copy of the photos taken. Almost everyone stores them as files on their computer. This can be lost anytime during a drive failure or any other catastrophe and would be a great personal loss for anyone. That is why it is essential to have a backup for all your personal photos.

2. Songs and Videos: With the MP3 format, it is possible to have a huge collection of your favourite music and videos in portable MP3 players. You can choose the music that you love and download it selectively into your MP3. Some MP3s also have the additional feature of video display and hence many people store their personal videos, favourite music videos and movie clippings in them. It would be terrible and unfortunate to loose the entire collection in one go. That is why it is important to have a copy of your songs and video files.

3. Correspondence: Gone are the days when people wrote letters. Nowadays, they have been replaced by instant messages and emails. Emails can be of a personal nature (mails from friends, pen pals, family) with emotional value or they could be of professional nature (business correspondence, insurance notice) and important for work and business. Care should be taken to have data backup of the same. This kind of data will need a constant review of the content of backup and old correspondence or mails can be replaced by more relevant, fresher ones. Some of the important ones can be permanently saved.

4. Address Book: The address book in our mobile phones is a perfect example of the kind of data that needs a backup. Most people use mobile phones and exchange or store contact details in the address book of mobiles only. Mobiles however are unreliable and any physical impact, falling in water can completely erase the information stored in it. Mobiles can also get stolen. Most people remember contact information that is used on a daily basis and there is rarely a hard copy available of the rest. Hence, it is important to have a ready backup which is regularly updated.

5. Financial Record: The most important data in your personal computer can be a record of all your accounts, financial records, and tax return statements and so on. There needs to be a proper record of all correspondence and information that has passed between you and the authorities. There could be an account of your personal expenditures, salary of your staff, any loan or debt payments by you or to you. This information is of great significance and definitely needs a backup. No one can afford to lose this data.

An essential part of data backup is to find the right medium to do so. The size and the nature of data decide which medium is apt for backup. There are several ones available like another hard disk, CD, DVD, USB flash drives, tapes and so on. For limited data backup of personal nature, DVDs are the best. They are compact, affordable, easy to use and store, have ideal capacities, are portable and perfect for off site storage. Buying the rewritable ones for personal use will be cost effective. For archiving unchanging data that is kept permanently, like personal photos, one can use the write-once variety.