I was just reading an article entitled Backup Basics — Or, How to Avoid Using Data Recovery Services! from Dr. Greg Mulhauser’s site. He followed this up with a second article: One Example of a (Hopefully!) Sound Backup Strategy.
From the original article:
What would you do if all your practice data suddenly disappeared? Data recovery services exist to help extract [...]

Before you shred your first sheet, you must have a solid data backup plan. What would you do if your hard drive started the “click of death” the day after you destroyed the original documents?
This is the first of many articles regarding backups.