By Dan Ackerman
(March 10, 2006)

Whether it's floodwaters, rolling blackouts, or malicious spyware, it can sometimes feel as if your small- or home-office PC is in constant danger of a catastrophic meltdown. Many of these fears can be chalked up to an overactive imagination (or overprotective upbringing), but there's no sense in leaving your most valuable business asset--your data--vulnerable to forces beyond your control.

Before the unexpected strikes, it's good common sense to prepare your own personal emergency response plan. A few simple steps can help you minimize downtime if your PC gets fried, zapped, smashed, or otherwise incapacitated.

There are plenty of ways to protect your data and hardware, and by employing a full suite of preemptive actions, you can tip the scales in your favor should things get ugly.

Disaster-proof your small-business PC

If you were to undertake all the steps we recommend for this project, you'd probably need a three-day weekend. Depending on which parts of our disaster-proofing plan you implement, you'll need some or all of the following items:

Disaster-proof your small-business PC

A basic surge-protecting power strip is virtually a no-brainer for any kind of delicate electronic hardware, but if the power goes out suddenly, you can be stuck with corrupted data or, worse, damaged PCs.

A simple solution is an uninterruptible power supply, or UPS. Sitting between your computer and the power outlet, a UPS can keep your computer running for a few minutes to an hour or longer after a power outage occurs. Installation is easy--much like a power strip, you plug your UPS into a wall outlet, and your hardware into the UPS. Bear in mind that its battery will take a while to fully charge after you connect it for the first time.

Consumer UPS devices can run from less than $50 for one that will run from 2 to 10 minutes to more than $400 for models that can keep the power flowing for more than an hour, depending on what kind of equipment you have plugged into it. APC is one of the best-known names in the UPS market. According to company literature, its $99 Back-UPS ES, which looks like a bulky six-input power strip, will keep a PC with a dual-core CPU, plus a 19-inch LCD monitor, a cable modem, and a wireless router, running for about 13 minutes.

If there is a blackout or localized power failure, no matter how much battery backup time your UPS provides, the smartest thing is to save your work and carefully shut down everything connected to it. The idea of a UPS isn't to continue your business dealings while the lights are out, but to have your data there when the lights come back on.

Disaster-proof your small-business PC

Keeping up with the various software packages that shield your PC from harm can seem like a full-time job to the uninitiated. But it's time well spent; even one stray bit of malware can compromise your data, endanger your customers, or fry your hardware.

There's nothing worse than being forced to do a clean reinstall of your operating system, thereby losing all your data--especially when a bit of preventive maintenance can obviate most potential problems.

A good antivirus program can shield you from viruses that try to infiltrate via Web sites, e-mail, or downloaded files. The catch, however, is that new viruses pop up every day. You need to keep your antivirus software up-to-date; vendors update their software almost daily. Once you buy a program, be prepared to renew your subscription on an annual basis (usually for around the retail price of the app) to keep those new virus definitions coming. McAfee VirusScan and Symantec's Norton AntiVirus are the two biggest players in the space, although Trend Micro PC-cillin is slightly cheaper and gets better reviews. Some low-cost or free antivirus apps might also fit your needs, especially if you have multiple PCs to protect.

Microsoft is just getting into the game with its OneCare Live service. It's an all-in-one solution, providing antivirus protection plus an improved firewall and antispyware protection. It'll even back up data you select at regular intervals. It's currently available as a free beta, and should eventually cost $49 a year for a three-machine license.

Another valuable resource is CNET's very own Security Center, where you can check in with the daily Virus Threat Watch.

Since your PC is probably always on, always connected to the Internet, and always full of sensitive data, a firewall that keeps information safely tucked away inside the computer is a must. Windows XP includes a basic firewall, and the Windows OneCare Live service offers an upgraded one, but for serious security, many people choose to rely on a third-party app such as ZoneAlarm, which is a CNET Editors' Choice product.

When installing antivirus and firewall apps from different vendors, be aware that some programs don't play well with others. McAfee and Symantec are notorious for this, and when we recently installed the beta of Windows OneCare Live, we were forced to remove our other antivirus software first.

While not as outright lethal as viruses can be, spyware is arguably a more insidious problem. Tracking cookies and stealth registry entries are as common as spam. Fortunately, minimizing the problem is fairly easy, thanks to several freeware apps on the market. Lavasoft Ad-aware and Spybot Search and Destroy are the most common programs, and both have basic versions available free. Microsoft also offers a free beta version of its antispyware tool, called Windows Defender. Choosing which one to run is easy. The conventional wisdom says run all three, as each program will catch files the others might miss.

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.