One of my first tasks when I joined the staff of the U.S. District Court was to write a disaster recovery plan for the IT department. While everyone knows the importance of backups (right? RIGHT?), not everybody considers the importance of establishing offsite backups.

Offsite backups are critical for disaster recovery. You will need them in the event a disaster causes physical damage to your computers.

Things have changed since I wrote that first disaster recovery plan. Nowadays renting space on a managed Internet server is cheaper than tape backups. Take a look at file hosting providers and online backup and recovery services.