Every individual, business or company loses their important and precious data due to certain unwanted events or actions, system failure or inadvertent deletion. The result is a huge loss of valuable information resulting into anxiety and stress. It is therefore advisable to store a copy of the data, which is called the back up, to a different location. These locations can be an external hard drives, but again these hard drives are constantly plugged into your system and will be lost in the event of theft or natural disaster.

It is more feasible to store such copies to an entirely different location away from your computer or home. In some cases people choose to back up their information onto remote servers via FTP or File Transfer Protocol, while others use the online back up services over the internet. But here also you have to be mindful as the data you gave to a third party for protection has other dimensions of safety and risks involved. You have to make compromises on the potential security issues or the availability of the service.

There are different back up media, each having its own advantages and disadvantages. The choice of the media depends entirely on your personal circumstances. For instance you may use CDRs to back up your data. It is definitely a simple way to store information but requires a frequent intervention by you to replace the new data each time onto the disk. Therefore you can choose the back up which runs automatically saving a lot of time and effort. For this purpose using external USB hard drives is a better option as it can be plugged directly into your computer and provides a large capacity storage space for your back up needs.

You may also think about CDR/W or DVDR/W as good back up media but again they are less stable over a longer period of time. Memory sticks are also a good option and can provide back up that can be transferred to another location with ease. You can use tape back ups but they are sensitive to magnetism and heat. Hence, whatever media you choose make sure that it is easy to use, has more advantages than disadvantages, requires very less of your intervention and at the same time can be scheduled easily.

Scheduling is an important aspect of any back up as you should be able to a back up without having to remember to do so. It should be done automatically even while you sleep. Automated back up is a great feature of a good back up media. The frequency with which you want to back up your data is also of great consideration before you opt for any back up media.