What Losing It All Taught Me About Saving
Backup. It's such a simple thing on paper - make a copy of important files and put them somewhere safe. In reality, for many of us, it's just another thing on that list of things we really should do but never manage to do.
I was firmly in this boat. Then, when disaster struck, I predictably lost a lot. Here's my story on what I lost, what I managed to keep, and how I recommend you approach backups starting today.
Best Practices
"A Stack of Hard Drives" by Ervins StrauhmanisIndustry standards evolved, but relief evangelists swore by the 3-2-1 rule. It's simple, straightforward and covers you for a wide range of disasters. It says you should have three copies of your data, two of which are on different devices locally and one that lives offsite. This protects you against data loss from a single crashed hard drive or computer, as well as in the event that your home or business is suddenly on fire, underwater, or occupied by belligerent enemies.
It won't shock you that my own backup regimen wasn't as robust. Oh, I had plenty of excuses as to why it didn't. Over the years, my work and files have been spread over two laptops and two PCs. Important files were scattered across multiple hard drives, hidden in folders across the digital savannah.
Backing it up for me wouldn't be easy. I had to figure out where everything important was and then find a way to organize it or save all the sweaty mess as it was. Trying to find all of this and drag it onto a portable player would be a pain. Not to mention having to do it manually every week!
Also, I would also have to make a copy and carry it somewhere offsite regularly to really protect what I had. Worse still, I had on the order of 8 terabytes of data accumulated from years of video production and other creative work. Backup would be difficult and expensive. Instead, every time I thought of backups, I thought "too hard!" and I went on with my life. I trusted my hard drives, after all, and figured if I was fine for 20 years, I'd be fine forever.
Like tears in the rainIt all came crashing down when enterprising criminals broke into my house and stole everything I had of value. Every laptop and PC came out, along with several guitars, a prized synthesizer, and just about everything else electronics worth over $50. A small victory was that my TV was too big for the thieves to carry, so luckily they let me keep it.
When my computers left the building, the vast majority of my data also left the building. YouTube videos, t-shirt designs, robot projects, websites, logos, PCBs…all gone. It was a crushing blow. The worst losses were the various files that were the tools of my trade. I write over a thousand articles a year, and to do that you have to have a...
Backup. It's such a simple thing on paper - make a copy of important files and put them somewhere safe. In reality, for many of us, it's just another thing on that list of things we really should do but never manage to do.
I was firmly in this boat. Then, when disaster struck, I predictably lost a lot. Here's my story on what I lost, what I managed to keep, and how I recommend you approach backups starting today.
Best Practices
"A Stack of Hard Drives" by Ervins StrauhmanisIndustry standards evolved, but relief evangelists swore by the 3-2-1 rule. It's simple, straightforward and covers you for a wide range of disasters. It says you should have three copies of your data, two of which are on different devices locally and one that lives offsite. This protects you against data loss from a single crashed hard drive or computer, as well as in the event that your home or business is suddenly on fire, underwater, or occupied by belligerent enemies.
It won't shock you that my own backup regimen wasn't as robust. Oh, I had plenty of excuses as to why it didn't. Over the years, my work and files have been spread over two laptops and two PCs. Important files were scattered across multiple hard drives, hidden in folders across the digital savannah.
Backing it up for me wouldn't be easy. I had to figure out where everything important was and then find a way to organize it or save all the sweaty mess as it was. Trying to find all of this and drag it onto a portable player would be a pain. Not to mention having to do it manually every week!
Also, I would also have to make a copy and carry it somewhere offsite regularly to really protect what I had. Worse still, I had on the order of 8 terabytes of data accumulated from years of video production and other creative work. Backup would be difficult and expensive. Instead, every time I thought of backups, I thought "too hard!" and I went on with my life. I trusted my hard drives, after all, and figured if I was fine for 20 years, I'd be fine forever.
Like tears in the rainIt all came crashing down when enterprising criminals broke into my house and stole everything I had of value. Every laptop and PC came out, along with several guitars, a prized synthesizer, and just about everything else electronics worth over $50. A small victory was that my TV was too big for the thieves to carry, so luckily they let me keep it.
When my computers left the building, the vast majority of my data also left the building. YouTube videos, t-shirt designs, robot projects, websites, logos, PCBs…all gone. It was a crushing blow. The worst losses were the various files that were the tools of my trade. I write over a thousand articles a year, and to do that you have to have a...
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