Almost everyone uses a digital camera now to take photos and videos.  Most people store these on their home computer or laptop.  These digital photos are treasured by most people but storing them on your computer and not backing them is often a disaster waiting to happen.  Computer hard-drives, though reliable do break and recovering the data may be impossible or expensive.  

There are several alternatives for making sure you don't lose your digital memories.   These include;
DLink DNS-323 Network Attached Storage (NAS) external hard drive device

  1. Backing up to DVD.  You can do this using the existing software on your Windows (XP or Vista) and Apple computer provided you have a DVD burner - a CD isn't really big enough to store all that you might have.  Windows XP isn't able to burn DVD disks without additional software - fortunately your computer likely came with DVD burning software.  If not you can get free software here: http://cdburnerxp.se/download


  2. Backing up to a second hard drive on your desktop computer.  You can buy another hard drive and have it installed in your desktop computer.   Make sure you buy a hard drive at least as big as your current one.   To make these backups using Windows XP follow these detailed instructions from Microsoft.


  3. Buying an external hard drive.  This is the best (and most expensive) ways to do backups but also provides other benefits.   Although there are many kinds the most useful external hard drives are a stand alone box that contains one or two hard drives and connects to your home router (the box that you can plug your computer into for internet access and often provides a wireless network to your house). 

    The benefits are that you can access your files on the external hard drive from any computer in the house.  Some also have connections (USB) for your printer so everyone in the house can print to one printer.  You can also put your digital music library on the device and play your music through any computer in the house. The external hard-drive enclosures that support two hard drives often allow one drive to automatically backup the other - so although this halves the amount of space available to store your files it means that if one drive fails all your data is automatically backed up on the second hard drive. 

    A popular low priced home-version  is the D-Link DNS-323.   Remember that if you buy this you will need to buy one or two  (if you want the drives to automatically back each other up) hard-drives as well.   Choose hard-drives of at least 500GB in size each.     The lowest retail prices  for this particular model are currently approximately $160  (compare prices in Canada or in the United States here).


Regardless of which of the three options above suits your budget or needs you should definitely get started to protect your photos, videos, and music.

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