I have lost count of the number of times I’ve been tortured by the prospect of losing my Outlook .pst or key business files.
I was aware of backing up files for a long time, but blew it off until a little while back when the latest in a series of friends experienced a fried hard drive.
So, I’m asking you today to start back everything up. If you’re already doing it, do it more often and in more places. It’s amazing how it has calmed me – I literally used to lose sleep thinking about my important files being vaporized.
As far as I am concerned, you can’t have too many redundancies when it comes to your backups.
If you are currently running your email locally, I’d suggest bringing it into Gmail, too. Just go to Settings > Accounts > Get mail from other accounts.
You can add in any POP account there.
And then the rest of your stuff – put it up at online storage services, as well as external hard drives and DVDs.
I use JungleDisk for online backups, and have them scheduled in the middle of the night, seven days a week. JungleDisk stores the data on Amazon.com’s S3 Storage Service, so even if JungleDisk were to disappear, your files are at Amazon.com.
As far as my local backups, my main one is an Iomega Desktop Hard Drive with a capacity of 1 TB.
I also backup regularly to a Seagate FreeAgent Go external hard drive with 160 GB, which is small and light. I travel with it, so I have all of my important files at the ready.
And I’ve got a couple other external hard drives that act as the backups to my backups.
Plus, I backup static files, like photos, videos and podcasts, to DVDs.
I try to keep my hardware safe, too, with a combination surge protector and battery backup.
Not only does it provide some protection for my computers, printer, scanner, etc., but also it enables me to save anything that I am working on if the power is knocked out.
Currently, I use the APC 1500VA Battery Backup with LCD.
A little paranoid? Yes, but I’m covered. Don’t put it off – cover your assets.
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I discovered a Memopal (www.memopal.com) “cutting edge solution for online
backup”
They merged online backup, online storage and file sharing services into one product.
I personally enjoy backing up all my blogs, sites and everything else to my local hdd. I am much much more comfortable knowing that all my data is in my own hands.
now I am paranoid if my hard disk fails i will lose it
And don’t forget to backup your blog with a tool like http://blogbackupr.com
On the subject of file backup, sharing and storage …
Online backup is becoming common these days. It is estimated that 70-75% of all PC’s will be connected to online backup services with in the next decade.
Thousands of online backup companies exist, from one guy operating in his apartment to fortune 500 companies.
Choosing the best online backup company will be very confusing and difficult. One website I find very helpful in making a decision to pick an online backup company is:
http://www.BackupReview.info
Have a look here, too:
http://www.backupreview.info/index.php?pid=read_article&article_id=9
This site lists more than 400 online backup companies in its directory and ranks the top 25 on a monthly basis.
You aren’t being too paranoid. I had my hard disk completely fail 2 weeks ago. The computer was only 4 months old. I’m still trying to recover.
Fortunately I had recent backups of almost everything except 2 critical database tables. They didn’t have anything I couldn’t recreate but it’s been time consuming. I’ve decided it’s time to do automated online backups but I’ll also do some local backups just to be sure.
Hi Shawn,
Great post! I love the time machine feature on my Mac Pro. It automatically back up everything, and what’s cool is you can restore your whole hard drive, a single file, or serious of folders – whatever you need.
I have a 500GB hard drive attached to my Mac which holds all the backed up data – so I’m good to go.
And yes it does give a lot of peace of mind.
-Amit
Hi Shawn!
Great advice. I do the redundancy thing too.
But another thing I’d suggest is to get some of those “backups” offsite also. Nothing like having that “meteorite” vaporizing your PCs/Macs right along wth your backups. heh heh
I also have a couple of Western Digital MyBook external drives that I rotate out twice a week with one going into a safe deposit box at my bank each time.
Drives them nuts at the bank as they can’t undderstand why I go to the safedeposit box so often! LOL
I also use the APC UPSs for my hardware. They’re the best out there, IMO, of course.
Thanx and Have Fun!
Rick Wilson aka CorpRebel
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