I started wondering about inexpensive backup solutions for relatively small amounts of data. Here's what I came up with. Anyone add anything else?

• Back up to CD-R. Cheap. Really cheap. These days you can get a CD-R drive for next to nothing, and the media is pennies. No excuse not to do this. But, it only stores about ~700 Mb on a disk. That used to be a lot. Not anymore.
• Back up to DVD-R. Inexpensive. Most modern PCs have a DVD-R drive of some type. The media is more expensive than CD, but only a couple of dollars or so. Holds over 4G.
• Back up to internal hard disk. Buy a second (or third!) hard disk. Every now and then, copy your important stuff to that drive. Two advantages here... One, the second hard drive doesn't have to be very big... only as big as your important data, so it can be an older model drive. You might be able to scrounge one from an old (non working) computer, or know someone who has one they'll give you. In the days of 300+Gb drives, no one wants a 20G drive. You do. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Second, it'll protect against the most common type of failures... accidental deletion and hard drive failure.
• Backup to external hard drive. More expensive, these are a great option. I bought one, and leave it at work. When my laptop's at work, I do a backup. That way, I have an "offsite" backup of my data. Over a year ago, I bought a 160 Gb external USB drive at Costco for around $150. I'm sure they've gotten cheaper.
• USB Thumb drives. It's amazing how cheap these are. Newegg has 1Gb flash drives for around $50.
• Gmal. Yes, Gmail. Zip up (and preferrably encrypt) your important files. Mail to your gmail account.
• Friend's computer. Mail the same encrypted zip file to your friends. Have them download it and store a copy locally.
• Other flash RAM media. Don't forget... You can store any type of file on most camera's flash media. Have a digital camera? Then you have a portable backup disk. Copy your really important files to large flash media for your camera / cell phone.
• Most ISPs still offer a small amount of space for personal web sites. It's not much, and most people don't use it, but you can. Find out how to upload / download stuff to it and put copies of your important stuff there (I say important, because even in the 21st century, it's usallly a very 1980's 10Mb or so.)

Of course, this list probably isn't complete, and it only addresses where you can make a backup. Don't forget to also think about the things which could happen to where your back up is stored... fire, theft, earthquake, hurricane, etc. The best way to ensure you'll be able to get your data back is to use multiple, dissimilar backup methods, then store those backups in different places.

Backups are a pain, no question. But the alternative is often much, much worse.