Determining the Value of Your Data

Determining the value of your data

You determine the value of your data in part by the amount of work it would take to reproduce it and by how important you feel it is. Determining the value of your data aids you in deciding how often to back up and whether you should back up offsite.
For example, I have manuscripts (including this one) on disk, each of which took perhaps hundreds of hours to produce. In many cases, my contracts require me to maintain copies of the manuscripts for a certain number of years. This work is invaluable to me. I plan my backups accordingly and store copies of the files offsite. If anything happens to my home, copies of the files stored off-site will survive.
Storing offsite can be as simple as renting space on an Internet storage site or copying data to a CD-R or DVD-R and placing it in a safe deposit box. The value I assign my data determines whether this is cost-effective. The same goes for personal files, such as photos, videos, or audio files.

Now that you've determined what you need to back up, how often you should back up, and the value of your data, you can take a look at different types of backups and determine which fits your intended application best. Whether you are backing up at home or for a small business, you can consider several approaches.