As we painfully learned recently, offsite backups may be your only chance to still have a backup. This mantra has long been chanted by the many service providers (4,960 results in my Google search for "offsite backup services") offering a way to automatically secure data in distant locations.

Greg Friedman of Friedman & Associates declares himself a picky consumer and a convert to the "back-up religion" after several episodes of data loss. Since Friedman & Associates provides financial advice and "wealth management" to well-heeled clients in Northern California, customer confidentiality and data control rules set by various government regulators must be followed.

Despite backing up to tape daily and burning files to CDs (now DVDs) monthly, Friedman says, "I've had several data loss episodes over the years." Some back-up tapes wouldn’t restore because there had been unnoticed errors in the back-up process while CDs were scratched or unusable for other reasons. "Three years ago I switched over to eVault after another data loss."

Friedman has "tons of data" after 17 years of serving clients, especially since he avoids paper and scans everything into electronic files. He has four file servers to support two companies with only six employees each: a Windows Exchange server; a Windows 2003 File server for users to log in to; a Windows Terminal Services server to run applications for local and remote users; and a basic file server holding their data. No data stays on desktop PCs, which essentially function as dumb terminals that run applications from the Terminal Server. Remote users can connect to the Terminal Server or use GotoMyPC to control a Terminal Server session. But no data gets stored on any client computer, including laptops used while traveling.

Although Friedman has all his eggs in one basket, the theory here is put all your eggs in one basket and really watch that basket. With the newspapers full of stories of lost laptops containing customer records, perhaps Friedman has the right idea.

"We were robbed about a year ago and lost two laptops and LCD monitors, but the servers were locked up and protected," says Friedman. Theft is tough, but at least Friedman could tell clients their data never left the office, because data was never on those laptops. Centralized storage does have advantages, especially when it comes to backup and security. The fewer locations you must secure, the more secure your network.

James Gaskin writes books (16 so far), articles and jokes about technology and real life from his home office in the Dallas area.