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Just thought I'd start a separate thread about this after hearing about this burglary - I recently had my laptop stolen from work but fortunately they didn't take the external hard drive so I only lost a few photos ...
... I cannot describe how upset I would have been to lose my photos ... and so with this near miss in mind, it has prompted me to take action.Now, theft is an extreme example ... but everyone should think about backing up their important information (photos, files etc.) because computers and hard drives are not perfect machines ... they can break.Best solution = the cloudThe safest way to store your info is on the internet ... but please note, it's not a backup if it's your only copy.Backing up to the cloud should also mean you keep a copy on your local computer / external hard drives.- For files: I use Dropbox / SugarSync / Google Docs
- For Photos: I have a pro account with Flickr (£15 for the year) that gives me unlimited photo uploads ... but there are solutions like Picassa (Google) and Windows Live Essentials (Microsoft) that will allow you quite a lot of storage space for free
Multiple hard drivesIf you back up to external hard drives ... keep them separate from your computer (to prevent theft). I think the technical description of "safe" is the length of a 747's wing from your computer or something ... which for most people is 'not in the house'. (If there is a fire you'll lose everything)Again - back-up means multiple copies.Don't think it won't happen to you ... there are a million reasons why you could lose data (haven't even touched on software threats like viruses).Make sure you have a back-up plan ... follow it frequently ... keep multiple copies of your important information.
Does anyone have any other advice to contribute? -
I use an online backup service that backs up every single file automatically online every 24 hours. It's not that expensive. Now I sleep at night.
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I back everything up with amazon's S3 storage. It's slightly tricky to setup, but very easy once you're in.. gigs and gigs of file storage for literally pence per month...
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Good advice! As a wise man once said "There are two types of hard drives -- those that have failed and those that will". It's very true, so back-up now!
I use Jungle Disk plus an external drive for backup, but I hear many people speaking highly of Dropbox. -
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