You have a backup plan for your data, right?
If you are nodding your head and thinking, “Of course I do, who doesn’t?”, then you have my respect. I still think you might find this series of posts beneficial as I’ll be introducing some new services and ideas, so stick around.
The rest of you, the ones who think hard drives aren’t made of tiny moving parts just waiting for something to go wrong, you need to wake up. You have data that you will lose.
Hard drives fail. Frequently. Period.
If you’ve never suffered from data loss, it’s a matter of when, not if.
Notice that I have yet to mention user error, viruses, cat incidents, spills or other destructive methods of data loss. Pick your poison.
Now that I have your attention, relax. I have your antidote. But you need to act swiftly, because you don’t want to be the one who waited a day too long and lost little Sally’s Kindergarten graduation pictures forever.
In the olden days (read: just a few years ago), backing up was a pain in the ass. External hard drives were expensive, massive and loud; and automated backup tools were mediocre unless you knew how to work the command line. This is no longer the case. We have amazing tools at our disposal now that make backing up simple and inexpensive.
Because I understand that everyone is not like me, I will be offering up several recommended backup plans in the coming days. Pick one that fits your needs, or head over to this wonderful form right now and I’ll build you a custom plan.
If you’re in a hurry, here are some online services you can use immediately:
- Backblaze: super simple online backup
- CrashPlan: more options, more features, more expensive
- Dropbox: all your files, on any device. Free service is great. Extra storage is a little pricey.
I plan to post a profile each day, at a minimum, for the next few days, so check back (or use the form to get your custom profile).
I use Windows Home Server. Every PC in the house is backed up automagically every night. It takes images then keeps them according to your rules. It also works as a media server, home web server, give you remote access to the server and your computers. It’s full Windows Business server under the hood, so you can configure mail servers and heaps of other stuff if you know your stuff …
It’s pretty good for people like me who don’t trust the Cloud … :+)
Steve, I like WHS. But what happens when a disaster hits and wipes out your computers AND your WHS? Do you at least have offsite in a safety deposit box or something?
Local backup is important, but not a true comprehensive strategy.