Backup everything.
If there is one thing I can say with absolute certainty about using your computer it’s this: IT WILL FAIL.
Duplicate all of your files and put them somewhere safe. Off-site backup is an ideal solution. Homes and offices get burgled, damaged or burned to the ground. Your insurance company will not be helpful in this regard. Get all of your music files, all of your business documents and all of your photos and make sure that if the worst happened to your computer(s) you would cope.
Your USB key doesn’t count. The story of the guy whose laptop was stolen with the USB key still sticking out the side has been told too many times. I’ve had 10,000 word dissertations go that way, only to necessitate a complete 24-hour rewrite from memory.
There are lots of satisfactory ways to back up your important data (and when your business is digital music – what data isn’t?). Personally, I go for the monthly DVD backup of any and all new data, and it’s stored in my office way over the other side of town.
But for smaller files – particularly individual documents and media files you want to be able to find easily again in case of emergency, I recommend webmail. Specifically, Gmail. I’m on a weekly backup regime for this – and I’m tempted to go daily.
After all, Google have spent millions on the best and most reliable servers and hard drive storage money can buy with full redundancy RAID arrays should anything ever go awry. They’re far more secure than your average home, and you can retrieve your data from anywhere. You get about 2 and a half gig of storage with them, and actually – you can have multiple accounts.
I have a Gmail account for my email (I like the interface) and a separate one for backups. I email all my important files there.
If you’d like to receive a reminder every so often, then you might want to send your future self an email using the very helpful FutureMe.org website. Try something like:
Dear Future Me — Stop what you’re doing and back up all the data. No – do it now. This is important. Remember what happened last time. Lots of love, Me.
PS: Checked in on the New Music Strategies Forum recently?
As I write this, my Mac is having its hard drive (hopefully) restored by a piece of software called Disk Warrior. Hard drive failure occurred around 11pm last night. Unexpected and inconvenient – but not disastrous, thankfully.
Coincidentally, Tom Martin is thinking much the same sort of thing at much the same time as me. Take that as a sign — and just go do it.
1 Trackbacks
You can leave a trackback using this URL: http://newmusicstrategies.com/2006/11/07/no-do-it-now/trackback/
a black jack…
Madison sequentializes vigorously effortlessness,…
One Comment
As a digital photographer and someone who pays for music downloads my files are very important to me.
When I built my current PC I put a substantial amount of the budget into a RAID mirrored storage drive. I use the windows powertoy SyncToy to regularly sync my storage drive to an external HDD. I used to then take the external drive to work and sync to the storage drive on my office PC. This gave me 1 mirrored RAID copy, 1 external HDD copy and 1 regular SATA drive copy. Unfortunatley I no longer have the work PC side of the system (not that it matters at the moment – my pc is on a boat). I think money permitting I will eventually add a 3rd disk to my mirrored RAID set and use it in RAID 5.
I am far too lazy to take Dubber’s approach of backing up to DVD media so the snazzy harddrive set up is the best soloution for me.
I completely agree with the principal of using gmail as storage and also as a place to access important files. I lose USB pens and delete files i think i dont need anymore from hardrives. Having things like my CV, copies of my e-tickets for travel, phone numbers and account numbers for utilities companies all stored in my gmail give me constant safe access.
I would welcome a cost effective online storage service, possibly subscribtion based, that would backup all important data and allow you to access it from anywhere. Some kind of WebSync. I like having my work PC with all the same software and settings as my home PC.
I predict that eventually you will subscribe to a remote machine that becomes ‘your’ pc and you will access it from low cost terminals – so whereever you are it is like accessing the same machine.