Backup Tools

At the risk of sounding like a nagging spouse or mother - I hope you are all backing up your family history data (and all your other digital files) on a regular basis.  I am a firm advocate of the 3-2-1 rule:

3 copies of your digital information
2 different formats
1 off-site copy

For example - my 3 copies are:

• on my laptop harddrive
• Carbonite continuous backup AND a once-weekly mirror image of my whole laptop
• peripheral hard drive (WD 1TB My Passport)

My 2 formats are:

• Cloud backup
• Peripheral Hard drive

My off-site copy is another 1TB WD My Passport that I keep in our safe.

Okay, that may not technically qualify as "off-site" - but the safe is fire and water proof and unless we get hit by a tsunami or Cat 5 Tornado it should be okay.

For those of you who are still trying to figure out the best way to safeguard your data, Family History Daily posted an article entitled, "5 Online Tools For Backing Up Your Family History Data" that is worth reading.  In it, they outline what I consider to be the top five best backup plans/programs.

Trust me - all it takes is one major hardware or software crash and you will appreciate the little bit of time and money it takes to secure all that information you have worked so hard to assemble.