Computers are wonderful at storing large amounts of data. They easily store extensive quantities of images, movies, files, songs, as well as books. Because of this, many people have moved away from conventional print media and hard copy photographs, videos, and cds. Why occupy an entire room packed with books and dvds, when you can stick them all on your desktop?

Regrettably, this leaves us really vulnerable. One laptop data drive malfunction and we might be completely destroyed. In the next few paragraphs I'll go over a few of the actions you can take to keep your digital items safe. We'll discuss the advantages and disadvantages to purchasing the best external hard drive, internet data backup, and owning a VPS.

The standard approach for saving your data is to simply purchase an external hard drive for your computer. Basically, you'll duplicate data from your standard disk drive over to your external hard drive so that you'll have an additional copy of everything. The main advantages to this technique is that it doesn't have any monthly fees linked to it, and you do not have to worry about people hacking into it over the internet.

A major drawback however is that it calls for some effort on your part. You'll need to set your computer up to copy the data over and you'll need to unplug it when it's not in use. Additionally, if your home falls victim to a fire or a burglary, you'll lose your external hard drive along with your personal computer. Needless to say, you could get a fire resistant safe to get around this final drawback.

Storing your data through an online storage company is fantastic because you can access it from anywhere there is online access and you don't have to worry about losing it in a fire. The two main disadvantages are the monthly cost and the threat of online hackers stealing your information. These problems also apply to folks that invest in a VPS.

A VPS is a virtual private server that basically acts as a remote PC. It is great because you can store data on it as well as run software programs off of it. Typically, it can even have a unique IP address, so you'll be able to put it to use when you don't want to make use of your own IP address. This means that you could theoretically get one with an IP address which has access to sites you can't gain access to from your personal IP. One good example would be Americans buying a British IP to access BBC programing.