Data Backup Day is November 1st, and to celebrate, GeneaBloggers is giving away three copies of Handy Backup.  The catch?  You have to write a blog post about data backup.  So yes, my motivation to write this article is to have a chance to win one of the Handy Backup copies, and here’s why…

I currently do manual backups of my data to my 700GB external hard drive, usually after I add a large number of digital files for my genealogy research or enter a lot of data into my genealogy database.  And nine times out of ten, I only back up my genealogy folder, since it’s the main thing that gets the most action on my computer (and that in and of itself takes forever).  This is certainly not a good practice.  In fact, I’ve spent the better part of this week adding all sorts of digital files and database entries, and have yet to back it all up!  The GeneaBloggers Data Backup Day post reminded me.  Again, this is not a good system to follow.

So after reading the GeneaBlogger post and taking a look at the product they’re giving away, I thought I’d write up an article so I could be entered to win, because clearly, I need a better way of backing up data then my current manual “if I remember” system.  And to be honest, even if I don’t win it, I think I’ll head on over and buy it.  There are a few things that got my attention, one being that you can set it to back up automatically AND you don’t have to be logged on.  The other thing was that it backs up Outlook, which is something I almost never back up (unless I’m switching computers or, in my current case, upgrading my OS—yes, I’m moving to Win 7—wish me luck!).

There you have it…my current backup method, and my near-future backup method.