With the holidays now passed, this is a good time to be sure to make backup copies of digital pictures and videos.  Our family is frequently downloading files from our digital camera to the family computer.  We have several memory cards for the camera, but they seem to be getting filled more quickly than ever before.  The digital camera was purchased in 2007, so we now have over 2 years of pictures to protect.

Our Labra'data' Retriever

I have been burning the files to CDs for safe keeping in case something would happen to the computer hard drive.  With the reasonable price and large capacity of external hard drives, a backup of those invaluable pictures can be scheduled to run automatically on a regular basis.  Creating a backup to the external USB drive provides extra protection. Also consider making a copy onto CDs or DVDs that can be stored at a relative or neighbor’s house or using an online backup service.  A principle of good disaster recovery planning for any critical data, whether for a business or personal use, is to have a retrievable copy of that data off site in case of a disaster.  Is your most precious data retrievable?