You have a computer, and you know you should have backups of all your data, but do you? What happens if your computer is stolen, or you drop it, or it gets struck by lightening? Can you afford to re-write that term paper from scratch? Do you know all your passwords? What about all that music you ripped from CDs you left back at your parents' house?

Exactly. You want a reliable backup of all your data, but you don't want to spend your entire life making one. Here are a few basic guidelines to keep in mind.

If you have your original install CDs or DVDs for your Operating System (Windows, Mac or Linux, for instance) and any of the software and applications you've installed, you can probably squeak by without having a complete system backup, but you need to know where all those installers are, and be prepared to spend several hours re-installing.

Ideally, you'll have an external hard drive that has about 25% more capacity than your own computer's hard drive, and you routinely back up nightly to that drive, using automatic backup software, or something like Apple's built-in Time Machine.

If you're a student, you might not have the luxury of an external drive for backup, so here are some alternatives that will help you save your data without leading into penury.

Get a free online web-based email account from Yahoo or Google that has lots of free storage. Use this account only for emailing yourself backup copies of important files, like the paper that's 40% of your grade for English. Just attach the document and mail it to that special backup account. Use this Web account to back up your work daily, but not for anything else. Just attach a file or files to an email and send it to this special address. Do this daily at least, with an important document or special images, because you can't have too many backups.
Get an inexpensive portable USB keychain or thumb drive. You can get an eight gigabyte drive for under $20.00 at local stores, national chains, or even online.
Get a free account on Dropbox, Sugar Sync or Minus. You might want to try all three, and then pick one. These are server-based accounts that give you a certain amount of space on their server to backup (or share) your documents. You can download a free app to use on your computer (or your phone or tablet computer) or use a Web browser to copy files to their server as a backup, or even to automatically sync all the files in a particular folder.
Take advantage of services like Apple's iTunes Match for backing up your digital music.
Don't forget the "burning" or copying your data to DVDs or CD-ROMs can be surprisingly affordable as well a simple. Generally speaking, if you're using either CDs or DVDs for backup, keep in mind that the re-writeable discs (CD-RW or DVD-RW) may not be a good option, since they do have a tendency to be difficult to read on computers or drives besides the drive they were created on.

Multiple kinds of backups at multiple locations is a good idea. If it's really important--either in terms of a grade or in terms of the unique quality or emotional value of the data, consider making at least one of the copies an off-site copy that you give or send to someone you trust to take care of for you, in the event that calamity strikes your area. The time you spend making a backup can easily save you hours or days when you have an emergency.

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