Protecting your precious school data and helping your friend move a big sofa have one important thing in common - they both require a lot of backing up. If a natural disaster strikes or your server crashes, it’s important to save your student records, financial records, and other key information on tape drives, external drives, special software, or through online storage services if you’re a smaller school with minimal IT staff. Educator Robert Kennedy writes an interesting article on About.com that gives you a schedule for backing up your school data. He recommends doing it at the end of every day, every week, every month, and every fiscal year. According to the article, you should store your tapes in a bank safe deposit box, or in some other secure off-site area. If you do store your data off-site, you may want to get a lockable fire- and heat-resistant file cabinet or an insulated and fire-resistant safe. It also makes sense to clean your tape drives from time to time and delete any unneeded files to preserve the integrity of what you store.

Perhaps most importantly, Kennedy recommends periodically practicing data recovery with your equipment and taking notes to make sure everything runs as smoothly as possible should the unforeseen actually occur. Think of it as a fire drill - take it seriously and see where you can improve your procedures and assess which software and hardware you need to upgrade or replace. In any event, backup drives and secure storage units may be the most important school furniture and school equipment you buy all year. Wikipedia has a lengthy intro to backup methods, terminology, and available media, so start there and look around online once you have a better idea of what you need.