I was contacted tonight by someone who had suffered a drive failure and was hoping for some insight on how to resurrect the drive or rescue the data that has potentially been lost.

For the sake of those that may have not thought about backups, please take a moment to back up your data right now. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

While you wait for your first copy to complete, don’t think you’re done. Make sure you follow the 3-2-1 rule of backup:

• 3 backup copies of any data you don’t want to lose
• 2 different media types
• 1 copy at a different location (off-site)

Personally, I recommend CrashPlan for backups. It’s free software for basic use that lets you backup to any other user of CrashPlan (if they agree) over the Internet. Currently, I back up from my main server (the one you’re reading this on), to the upstairs computer, a machine at work, and to my mother-in-law’s computer. In the spirit of encouraging safe data, if you have a reasonable amount of data, let me know and I can be a backup destination for you (don’t worry, I’d be unable to read the data as it’s encrypted by the software).

Protect your data, folks.