January 16, 2010

A cautionary tale,

...about backing up. How well backed up is all your computer work, digital photographs, ipod music downloads etc? Take a few moments and think about if your computer, ipod or iphone went kaput or was stolen, how much would you loose?

I thought we were pretty well covered at home, until this week, something important slipped through the net. We backed up onto an Apple Time Capsule, looks the business, large memory capacity etc, however the other day, just as I was dragging files from it to the new imac, the time capsule went blank. Our back up failed.  Turns out it is a common problem. Most files are salvageable in some way as there is another copy on CD, but sadly there are, amongst other things, photo's of the children gone and a word document I had spent most of this week working on, something big and important, something I thought I had a second copy of, but I'm embarrassed to admit, I didn't.

The bright side is I do have a new computer, and it is indeed a beauty!


So, while I rewrite what's been lost from memory as best I can, lets think about ways of backing up :: external hard drive (make sure it's a reliable one though!), burn to a disk, memory stick, email your files to everyone you know and ask them to keep a copy for you. If you can think of any more, let me know.


(me, playing around with photo booth)

ps, thank you for all the lovely comments about turning (whispers)..., 40!

15 comments:

Colette said...

I am so sorry. It is the photos of the children that bring it home to you how much we would loose. Even as i type this I am ashamed to say i haven't got anything backed up.

Think I should really spend part of the day tomorrow burning stuff (like photo's on to disk!!) Thank you for the reminder.

Colette

Needled Mom said...

I learned the hard way too. I have all of my stuff protected under Carbonite now. I had to use it last year and got everything back so I swear by it.

emily said...

So sorry to hear this! I just last week discovered that I have no backup copy of photos from July 07 to dec 07. I was trying to find some pics I had taken of my grandmother for her obituray when I discovered this. Fortunately I knew I'd scrap booked the photos so I went to my walgreens acct where I print most of my photos and found these plus many others from that year. So I think having your photos stored on a site like walgreens or snapfish is a good way to go. I can order high res CDs of my photos.

Gluten Free Store Ltd www.glutenfreestore.co.nz said...

Oh I am so hearing what you are saying. We lost about 18 months worth of photos last year. My own fault as was "going to get round to backing it up". Computers can be so cool, but also a curse at times! All good when everything is running smoothly, but hellish when problems arise. Pretty new puter though!!!

Enchanted Droppings said...

:-( Sorry to read about all your lost work, photos etc. That really sucks. I backed up my stuff from my old PC onto an external hard drive then backed it up onto a netbook. Turns out I had a virus and it messed up my netbook. I still have stuff on my external hard drive but the external hard drive needs to be formatting to work with my Mac and I need to fix my netbook. oy! lol

You should follow Frederick Van Johnson's blog. He is doing a series about data storage and backing up your files: http://frederickvan.com/2009/12/your-photo-backup-blueprint-pt-1-of-5/

Hope it helps :-)

xoxo said...

I recommend you everything backup onto a cd every week, except music - backup once but then again if you've updated it.

French Knots said...

Oh what a shame! We lost pictures of the children and learnt the hard way too. Now we have an external hard drive and I assume will be ok in future, fingers crossed.

andrea creates said...

So sorry this happened to you.I hate losing photos most of all.Thanks for the tips and the reminder!

Jodie said...

Oh I have a crazy mish mash of USB , external hardrives and wishful thinking.
Time to get serious. Thanks for the prompt

Suzanne Vaughan said...

Not good losing photos :(

However, turning 40 is not too bad. I wasn't dreading it and, the next day I only felt a day older - not the old biddy I expected to suddenly turn into. Mind you, I have great genes and only look 29 - hee hee

thea said...

oh man! MAJOR bummer :(

I recently spilt tea on my keyboard (another folly) and so feel a little of your pain.

thea.
xx

www.spoonfulzine.com

noodleBubble said...

Bit of sunshine for a sad post you were among the winners of little blog award - head over to

http://noodlebubble.blogspot.com/2010/01/award-goes-to.html


Lisa
X

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Nerys

Jennifer said...

Sorry to hear that. That is never fun, but I saw you got the new iMac. I myself just got this new computer... LOVE it! Enjoy your new computer, it is amazing!!!

Luciana F. Damiano said...

Hi!
I like so much your blog and your crafts. They are so cute!!
Congratulations!

Luciana