Back up your data. Multiple times, multiple places.
That’s a lesson that I should have learned multiple times, but keep failing to absorb. Maybe if I tell it to other people, I’ll hear it myself.
I’ve been trying to recover as much as possible of what was on the laptop that was stolen two weeks ago. A lot of things are just gone. Some were things that I created, so in theory I can create them again. Other things weren’t, and I have no way of recovering them.
So for now, I’m doing redundant backups to an external hard drive, one with a “cloning” program, one with a backup program. I want to get additional backups going to our server at work, just for safety’s sake.
Knowing me, I’ll be diligent about this for a while, then slowly slack off. Until I lose data again.
Or maybe, just maybe, I’ve learned my lesson this time.
How about you? Are you protecting your data? Any particular scheme for that that might be of use to the rest of us?
Tim,
I use Carbonite! I have had it for over a year and have not used it yet. Carbonite loads a small program on your computer and uploads all the information to their servers. It has not slowed down my computer at all. I pay $55 a year per computer, but i believe it is greatly worth it.
I was using an external hard drive, but figured it was useless if the house burnt, I would still lose everything. Also, it was up to me to update it every month. Carbonite updates each files as I update it.
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Just my thoughts,
Chris
Chris,
I’ve looked at something similar with CrashPlan. As for the external drive, it stays at the office while the laptop gallivants around with me.
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer
As a pro photographer I am paranoid about backups! Tried just about everything on the market. Best solution by far is a program called Goodsync. I think it’s $30. Once you set it up you can forget it. My image files immediately go to 2 hard drives, then that night are copied to a third. Once a month I copy the new ones to DVDs. My program files, documents, etc all backup nightly to another drive.
Concerning EXTERNAL hard drives: NO ONE makes a good one! I had 8 fail – 4 different brands, before I discovered that they are cheaply made as compared to the quality internal drives. Look at the MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) on any external drive and you will find it a fraction of that of the better internals. The real kicker, you can get a Western Digital Black Caviar internal, plus an external case for about the same price as an external drive. It slides into the case and then plugs into your computer just like an external. Faster. Better. About the same price. What more could a certified paranoid ask?
Thanks Paul. Hadn’t thought about the differences between internal and external drives.
I’ve always been pretty OC about this. I used to make my internal hardrive as my back up and use my external hardrive as my primary. This has served me well through the years through the ocassional crashes. I’ve made a shift because I have downloaded so many audio tapes, which take up tremendous space. I now have a terrabyte drive for those and my laptop for the rest. I use Apple’s Time machine to back up my laptop, which utilizes a Lacic external hardrive. I pay $5 to have Backblaze back up both off site.
A friend of mine in graduate school didn’t have anything backed up and he had almost his entire Master’s thesis finished when he lost it all.
Grace and Peace,
Rex
I am an apple user………