March 31 is World Backup Day. It’s when you’re reminded of the importance of having a backup for all of your precious data and settings. Anyone who’s confronted the horror of data loss full on should know the importance of having at least one backup copy of all their key documents, photos and other files and settings, but why wait until you’re faced with the prospect of losing irreplaceable data or shelling out hundreds, even thousands, of dollars to get it back?

Windows ships with a relatively effective backup tool, but it’s blunt and not particularly flexible to your exacting needs. Instead, you should turn to the plethora of third-party backup utilities if you’re serious about protecting your data from harm. And to celebrate World Backup Day, we’ve put together a selection of amazing deals on backup software that could save you money as well as put your data in a safer place this Easter.

Our headline deal this World Backup Day gives you the chance to purchase O&O DiskImage 7 Professional for just $9.95 this holiday Sunday and Monday. The powerful tool provides you with everything you need to back up both selected data such as individual files and folders, plus take a drive image of entire partitions and drives for complete peace of mind.

While’s it’s still not a tool for complete beginners, O&O DiskImage does provide some hints and tips to guide you towards protecting your data, and version 7 makes things friendlier with a redesigned dashboard-style interface.

The $9.95 price represents a massive 67-percent discount on O&O DiskImage’s normal MSRP of $29.95, and is available for just 48 hours from 00.01 GMT, Sunday March 31 to 23.59 GMT, Monday April).

More Great Offers

If O&O DiskImage doesn’t tempt you, why not check out some other great deals from our comprehensive backup range? If you’re looking for a backup tool that does things with the minimum of fuss, check out Genie Timeline Professional 2013 at just $29.95, which is half its MSRP.

Your purchase gives you a 1-PC, non-expiring lifetime’s license to one of the simplest and fuss-free backup tools on the market. Launch the program, select your backup drive and then simply choose between ticking category boxes like Documents, Email and Bookmarks from the Smart Selection tab, or manually choosing individual files and folders to back up via the My Computer tab.

Once done, that’s it: just leave Genie to do the rest of the hard work for you, updating your backups as files are changed and your PC sits idle. A built-in Restore tool makes recovering individual files as well as your entire backup a doddle too.

If you like the basic concept, but want that little bit more control over your backups, such as being able to back up the Registry or key Windows settings, then check out Genie Backup Manager Home 9.0 instead. It’s also available for $29.95, a 40 percent saving on its MSRP.

Imaging your entire hard drive doesn’t just allow you to recover data, it also enables you to restore your entire system quickly in case of disaster, even if you’re forced to replace your PC’s hard drive. We’ve got some great deals on drive-imaging tools this Easter weekend: get the renowned Norton Ghost 15 for just $39.99, a saving of 43 percent on its MSRP for a single-computer, single-year licence.

Alternatively, you can pick up Paragon Backup & Recovery 11 Home for $31.96, a saving of 20 percent. Or if finances are extremely tight, check out our fantastic deal -- 46 percent savings on MSRP -- on True Image 2013 by Acronis.

For just $26.99, True Image offers comprehensive backup tools covering individual data and entire drive images, plus comes with a Try&Decide feature for testing software without affecting your main PC installation. There’s also file-sync support for keeping files updated across several PCs and access to True Image Online, a subscription-based cloud backup service for storing your files securely over the internet.

Speaking of cloud-based backups -- a great complementary way of creating a backup that’s stored securely away from your computer -- we finish our roundup of selected deals with an amazing offer on AVG LiveKive. Until 23.59 on Monday, you can pick up AVG LiveKive 25GB, which offers up to 25GB online storage space for a whole year, for the amazing price of just $16.95, a saving of 66 per cent on its MSRP. By way of comparison, that means you’re paying the equivalent nominal sum of just $1.42 a month for the security of keeping your precious files protected (and synced with all your other devices).

All of these great deals mean there’s no excuse not to mark World Backup Day by taking the plunge and investing what is a very small sum on keeping your precious files and settings backed up. Particularly when you consider the potential cost of actually having to pay to have your data recovered.

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