If your focus is on production there are few things more frustrating than having to backtrack and re-do work that you already completed.

Worse is when double jeopardy strikes and the tools you use let you down. Not only do you lose work already completed, you also lose production time while you reassemble the collection of software, settings and preferences that let you get things done. That’s why an effective backup strategy is critical to maintaining productivity.

At the same time, you don’t want to be a slave to your backups.

In a series of four articles originally published on The MUG Center blog, we take a look at the issue of backups.

• Backups: How To Value Your Backups describes how quickly and without warning a drive can be lost, and suggests a method of putting a dollars and cents value on your backup.

• Backups: Goals and Equipment covers the objectives of your backup strategy and helps you determine just how extensive your strategy needs to be.

• Backups: Hardware Set-up and Methodology starts an examination of a suggested hardware setup for an effective backup strategy.

• Backups: Software Issues and Off-Site Backups continues the discussion of hardware setups and shows why it can be necessary to change your backup software selections.

Use these articles as a place to start thinking about backups, why they should be #1 on your to-do list, and to get some ideas on how to go about developing a backup strategy of your very own.