Backup Your Data
In your efforts to preserve your family history and heritage, don't risk losing all your hard work due to a computer malfunction. Of course, if you are not using computer software to store or organize your research, then you probably have nothing to worry about. On the other hand, those of us who use the computer are always running the risk of our hard-earned genealogy research disappearing in the blink of an eye when a hard drive dies.
Most people do some kind of data back up, but that usually consists of running a backup function in your software program. While very handy, this usually only creates a second file that is stored in another directory. This is great option to protect against accidentally deleting a relative, or making some other small mistake. But this kind of backup is not any protection against a large problem with your computer.
It's highly recommended that you store your valuable data in another location to protect against any sort of virus attack or hard drive failure. That's very good advice. There are a few options for backing up your family tree data.
Burn a CD-ROM
This type of back up is probably the most common, especially since most CD-ROM drives are able to burn disks as well as read them. Your files are burned onto a disk, which you can then store anywhere you like. There are CDs that you can re-burn later as your files are updated, but most people just burn one disk and then burn a new one later with an updated backup.
Use an Flash Drive
These handy little devices are also called jump drives, or thumb drives. They are like a mini hard drive that you can store quite a bit of data on. Because they operate like a hard drive, they are very functional and can be used to store backups over and over again. Files are just updated when you need to. It shows like an extra drive, and you simply move your files from your main computer drive, to the backup one. These drives are about the size of a cigarette lighter (or smaller) and can hold quite a bit. An average size one is about 1 gigabyte. They just plug in to any free USB port, like your mouse or printer might also use. Though you can leave them plugged in, it's best to unplug them and store them off your computer, to protect against viruses.
Upload to an Online Backup
There are various online services (such as Mozy), that allows you to upload your files to a remote computer for safe keeping. These services do charge a monthly fee, but your files are stored in a professional-level safe system. Many even have a scheduling tool that automatically uploads your files without you even having to remember.
Though storing your backups off your computer will protect them from any kind of technical problems, you might even consider storing a backup away from your house altogether. A fire, flood or break-in could end up ruining your precious files AND your backups too.