Disaster-proof your small-business PC

Even with meticulously updated software, your data is still not 100 percent safe. Your PC's hard drives are vulnerable to mechanical failure or physical trauma caused by anything from a natural disaster to a spilled Diet Coke.

The best way to never lose important information is to make sure it exists in more than one place. Keeping backups of select files on CDs, DVDs, or USB memory keys is a quick and easy way to keep a duplicate, but small-business owners and operators will require something more robust.

The hard drive in your PC probably won't fail for many years, if at all. Hard drive manufacturers typically tout their MTBF, or mean time between failures. A typical MTBF rating ranges from 300,000 to 600,000 hours, but take it from us--when the chips are down, you don't want to be the exception that proves the rule.

One way to keep your data safe is with a RAID array. No, it's not a retro bug spray, nor is it what happens when Elliot Ness shuts down a speakeasy. In our case, RAID stands for redundant array of independent disks, a scheme for duplicating information on your hard drives to insure against loss or damage.

There are different flavors of RAID, but you'll be interested in RAID Level 1 for protection purposes (vs. improved performance). In a RAID-1 setup, two drives of the same size mirror the data on each other, so if data on one drive is corrupted or the drive fails, you have a backup copy. Unless it's built into your motherboard, you'll also need a special RAID PCI card for keeping the two drives in sync.

Setting up a RAID array is probably the most time-consuming part of this Weekend Project. In fact, there's an entire Weekend Project feature dedicated to setting up RAID. Read it for detailed instruction on configuring and installing your drives.

Setting up redundant drives in the same machine is a good start, but what if your PC is washed away in a flood or flattened by falling roof tiles? We strongly suggest saving important data to an external drive. You can use an NAS (network-attached storage) setup in a nearby closet or cabinet or an external hard drive that connects to your PC via USB or FireWire.

NAS devices can be located anywhere on your network, and they can also be used for sharing files with other PCs in your office. Most offer 250GB to 400GB of hard drive space and are portable enough to grab and go if the situation warrants.

External hard drives are similar, but are directly connected to your PC. Many, such as the Maxtor OneTouch II, offer a one-button backup utility that backs up important data at regular intervals or whenever you hit the inviting backlit button on the drive.

One final step for data duplication is finding an offsite home for your backups. Companies such as Xdrive and iBackup offer remote backups for a monthly fee. With Xdrive, $20 a month gives you access to 10GB of space, and you can use its software interface to set an automatic backup schedule. A nice touch is being able to right-click a file and select the Save To Xdrive option to back up the file instantly.