According to the US National Archives, “31% of PC users have lost all of their files to events beyond their control.� Look at the person on your left. Now look to the person on your right. If it’s not one of them – IT’S YOU. It hurt didn’t it!

And if its not you, you know a guy, right? While not all of us have lost an entire computer full of data we all play in a world where our data is increasingly valuable and increasingly vulnerable. Think of the value of your data – Word files, Excel spreadsheets, Quicken data, emails, contacts, appointments, accounting information, budgets, proposals, pictures, music, and on and on. If somebody held a gun to your computers figurative head what would you pay to not pull the trigger?

Before answering, remember that you pay for insurance in most every area of you life. That insurance provides you the luxury of calling an agent behind a desk somewhere to make problems go away. Ahem, “Allstate, it’s me. I just drove my car into a lake and I need a new one.� Or, “Geico, can you get the little green fella’ on the line. My house just went up in flames and I’m thinkin’ remodel.� Pay your deductible and you’re back in business.

But what about your computer? You’re at Starbucks sitting down to enjoy your freshly brewed Caffè Mocha when you realize they didn’t give you one of those cardboard finger saver sleeve things. While you’re at the counter trying to get the attention of the guy in the apron your laptop walks out of the place under the arm of some highly caffeinated punk who just scored big. You know the feeling you get when you can’t find your wallet? Multiply by 10. Your ENTIRE LIFE was in that computer.

Go ahead; call your friendly neighborhood State Farm agent. You’ll get your computer back. Pull some software CDs out of your desk. You’ll get your programs back. Now just reload the copies of all of your data (you know, the files you make with you computer hardware and software that is almost as unique to your life as your DNA).

Say what?

You don’t have copies?

Oh, I see. So let me get this straight. You know you should have made copies. You even know that you could have printed hard copies or backed them up on CD or to another form of “storage media� but you didn’t. And may I ask why not?

Hold on there; let me write these excuses down as you make them up so I can pass them on to my other friends who drop the ball on this one:

· I don’t have time.
· I don’t know how.
· I kind of know how but I’m not really sure its working so what’s the point?
· Not only do I not have time, but my backups are out of date a few minutes after I make them anyway.

All legitimate excuses. None of them, however, are going to bail you out.

This just in… there are now THREE things certain in life:

1. Death
2. Taxes
3. Data Loss

Maybe you’re not a coffee drinker, but your data is still susceptible to the four leading causes of data loss:

· Disaster – theft, fire, hurricane, earthquake, etc.
· Virus Attacks
· Computer Hardware Failure
· Human Error (oops!)

So how do you prevent data loss?

YOU DON’T. It’s going to happen. The real question isn’t, “How do I prevent it?� It’s, “When it happens, how do I get it back?� The answer is simple – THE INTERNET.

That’s assuming your have joined thousands and thousands of computer users who are subscribing to online data backup services. The concept is quite simple: load a small software utility onto your computer that constantly runs in the background and tell that utility where you keep your critical data files. From that point forward any time you create new files or make changes to existing files, the online backup utility sends copies of those critical files to its highly secure off-site data storage facility. WHEN you lose your data you simply retrieve your copies over the Internet.

Ta-da. Aren’t you smart?

With companies offering this service now for just a few dollars per month, this is indeed the cheapest insurance you can buy for any aspect of your life. So what do you say? The gun is at your computer’s head. The ransom is $3.00.

Your move.

About The Author: Andy Sperry is a freelance writer and CEO of online backup service provider The Backup Agent (http://www.thebackupagent.com).

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andrew_Sperry