Why most people think backing up their data is something you don’t have to take seriously is beyond me. Today, I want to let you guys know what I do. Some of you might consider it excessive, maybe it is but I love redundancy.

Here we go:

Step1) Back it up online, there are lots of decent online backup services and they’re ridiculously cheap

Step2) Back it up on your computer

Step3) Back it up on an external storage device, anything from a USB flash drive to an external HDD

Bonus: if your hosting company backs up data as well (and it should but please never rely exclusively on those backups) then great, yet another layer of redundancy.

If you start backing up websites this way as of today, then the following things would have to happen at the same time for you to lose your data:

– the server used by your online storage provider should explode
– your computer should explode
– your external storage device should explode
– your hosting company’s backup server (again, assuming your hosting company backs up data as well) should explode

Even taking just one of the three measures of precaution I recommended puts you in a better position than most webmasters who think relying on their hosting company’s backups is a good idea. Maybe all of this is excessive but I for one take pride in my work and the more layers of redundancy I can add, the better 🙂