Fifteen Backup Programs to Safeguard Your Data

There's no way around it: Malware happens, drive failure happens, natural disaster happens. If your data isn't backed up, it's gone--or it will require an extremely expensive, not-certain-to-succeed recovery operation.

If all you have on your system are scribblings and unimportant downloads, you might not care. But you probably have something of value: scanned pictures of ancestors, wedding videos, a presentation you worked all week on, the song that's going to make you famous.

It pays to back up, and it has never been easier to do so. No matter what method you're most comfortable with, be it traditional file-based backup, image backup, or continuous data protection, one of the following fifteen tools will do the trick.