There is an old saying when it comes to backups:  One is none.

How many copies of your important information do you have?  Where do you keep your photos?

Let's take photos:  When home computers advanced enough that people could begin to scan their photos and save them, they were working from hard copy originals.  Old family albums still exist as heirlooms.  As time has gone on, almost all new photos are created and shared digitally.  Everything is automatic and people don't give it any thought.  So if your photos are backed up to iCloud or Google Drive you are ok right?  Not so fast...  Some types of ransomware will happily lock files it can find on cloud storage as well.  Attempting to download photos from websites such as Facebook may not give you the quality you expect.  

The same is true of other documents.  As more and more information is only created digitially it is important to keep the information safe.  This often involves more than just making a copy.  Many software packages that were widely used such as Microsoft Works or Microsoft Money are no longer available.  Documents created in this software may be lost over time as they can't be opened any longer.

So multiple strategies are required to keep your information safe.  First, backup often and keep the copies safe.  Flash drives (also known as thumb drives or jump drives) now have enough storage capacity and are inexpensive enough to save most users' documents and photos on a single drive.  This allows you to store them someplace safe like a bank safety deposit box.  This prevents them from becoming lost due to theft or fire.  It also allows you to keep extra copies in case something goes wrong with any of the others.  It is also important to backup your entire operating system from time to time.  External drives from Seagate include software to allow you to create an image of your operating system so it saves your Windows the way it was working when it was backed up.  This can allow you to restore it later if things go wrong without having to reinstall all of your software and settings.  Windows 10 also makes it easier to refresh your operating system.

Second, whenever possible save your important documents as a PDF file.  PDF files are created by Adobe Acrobat and are also widely supported by other software.  Newer versions of Microsoft Office can save files in the PDF format.  Banks will allow you to download your statements in PDF.  So far this is one of the more enduring formats to allow information to be read across multiple systems.  Keep in mind this may change at some point in the future and could require another conversion.