I recently experienced a near disaster. My computer crashed - and I mean really crashed - and for a brief time it looked like everything on my hard drive was lost. How could this happen? Why didn't I have a back up? Both good questions for which I do not have an adequate answer. It is just so easy to procrastinate, isn't it? Anyway, it was a total wake-up call and I now have a beautiful 2TB external hard drive (just like the one in the picture) that automatically backs everything up as I go. So if you're not backing up your data, stop procrastinating! Spend the money to get some sort of back up system in place so that you don't see all your hard work (or worse yet, digital photos!) vanish into thin air.
Data Backup is Simple and Affordable
I understand that there are services that can often recover your data even after a catastrophic crash but it comes at a high cost - like $1,400 was the quote I heard. I think $100 or so is a better price, don't you? And the peace of mind I now have is priceless. Although the image and link above are for Amazon, I actually got my Seagate 2TB external hard drive on sale at Costco.
In looking at the product on Amazon, I see that there are a few negative reviews. Thankfully I did not experience any of the problems mentioned. We just hooked the thing up and it went to work. About 15 hours later, I was all backed up. Now I've got it unhooked. I could leave it on all the time but for my purposes that isn't necessary. My plan is to just hook it back up periodically or when I'm working on something really important. So please, please, please - do yourself a favor and get a backup system in place. This is an instance where redundancy is a very good thing!
Such a simple thing can make all the difference, and save some major stress and headache... Great tip here Crystal.
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by, Marcus. Yes, major stress and headache were exactly what I was experiencing! So glad to have my backup system now:)
ReplyDeleteHey Crystal,
ReplyDeleteBacking up my stuff is really something I should be doing as well - but then something else always comes along when I think about it and backing up my system gets forgotten.
I'm a bit worried - because if my computer ever did just crash, I would be in HUGE trouble, with all the files and documents I have on here.
I've decided that I'm going to start backing up my computer every weekend, starting tomorrow. I have a flash drive that I've been using to back up the important files, so I'll just use that until I can spend the money for a back up system.
Definitely get some sort of backup ASAP, Christina! Backing up weekly to your flash drive is a good interim plan until you can get something automatic. The problem I had was actually doing it. My husband got an external hard drive and our plan was for me to manually backup my important stuff over our local network. Well, after the crash he checked to see what I could salvage from there and guess what? The most recent file date was in summer of 08. Not too helpful beings that was a full year before I embarked on my online writing adventures. Anyway, learn from my mistakes and near disaster:)
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