Backup Early Backup Often

A takeoff on an old saw from the twentieth century about voting early and voting often. Aka: Vote EarlyAndOften. The last Presidential Election of that century negated many of those principles. It is a good thing to ensure the accuracy and integrity of information on your computer, and the backup is just one of the ways this can be done. It can also be insured by the duplication of data. (Storing information in more than one place and in more than one form.

The last one standing is Count Them Again Until You Get The Same Number Twice. (Principle of Verification - a variant of the Checksum).

The real reason one should backup and often is to ensure the retention of information on the device by duplicating the information on another media. The assumption being that the secondary media is at least as dependable and somewhat more secure. Related to keep your backups in a safe place, and emphasizes the importance of Offsite Record Retention. A regular program of incremental backups (backup of information changes since last backup) cannot be stressed too often.