For any home user there are many reasons to backup your data. In case of hard drive failure, fire, flood, computer crashes etc. There are also many ways to preserve your data with different types of backup solutions.

The easiest and most inexpensive way to backup data such as pictures, home movies, or financial data is to burn the files to a DVD. That way, in case of data loss or if you have to rebuild your computer, you just simply put in your DVD with the data on it and copy it back to where it should be. If you do not have a DVD burning program, they typically cost about $30. With that you will be able to choose what data goes on each DVD and can be a much easier way to organize your data. A good copy program is linked below. I can't stress enough though, once the data is backed up please move the discs off site from your home. If there is a fire you will lose the data on both the computer and your backups. If you cannot find a place to put them away from home, buy a DATA fire safe. They cost a couple hundred dollars, but if you try to put a dollar amount on your data the price is well worth the investment.

If you do not like burning DVDs or you just have too much data to copy. I highly recommend purchasing an attachable drive bay with as much space as you need. A drive with anywhere from 500GB to 1TB will cost anywhere from $150 to $300 depending on the size of the drive. Once the data is copied over, you need to find a way to protect it in case of disaster. You can put it in a fire proof safe or possibly at a trusted person's house. Keep in mind though if you are adding data regularly you will want to backup at least once a week. To avoid copying the same data twice, use a program similar to AllWay Sync, it will read both sides of data, compare them and only copy the changes. There is a link to this tool in my company's website under the links page.

Another solution which makes it easy to save data offsite is by using an online backup solution. These sites can be found by searching for a remote offsite backup solution. They will charge you a monthly fee typically and can be very expensive depending on how much data you have. There is also the argument of them having access to your data which is something I personally do not like.

In the end, the choice is up to you. I highly recommend some type of backup solution and I have personally suffered the consequences of not doing so. I lost all of me wedding pictures and the first four months worth of pictures of my son because my hard drive crashed.