Below you will find a list of ways to back up your data, and the pros and cons of each.

External Hard Drive

• Can hold backup copies of all of your music, pictures, and documents
• Fairly small and can be moved from one computer to another
• Expensive, costing between $50 to >$100
• Can fail (like any other hard drive)

My Files

• Can only hold a relatively small amount of data (1GB)
• Plenty of room for all of your school documents
• Data is backed up several times on Northeastern’s network.
• Your files are accessible 24/7 via http://myneu.neu.edu

Flash Drive

• Can only hold a relatively small amount of data (1-8GB, generally).
• Enough room for documents, some pictures, and some music
• Very portable, but small size may make it easy to misplace
• Better used for transferring files than for backing up data

Recordable CD/DVD

• CD’s can hold 700MB, DVD’s can hold 4.7GB
• Cheap enough to back documents up to, but most cannot be re-written once you have backed up once, so you need to buy more CDs/DVDs every time you need to back up.
• CDs and DVDs can be unreliable over extended periods of time. They are easily damaged by scratches, direct sunlight, and extreme temperatures.