(SOUND: A computer fan WHIRRING, becoming increasingly LOUDER as it revs up its RPMs)
ANNOUNCER: When was the last time you backed-up you’re hard drive?
GAL: I don’t know. Doesn’t the computer do that on its own?
DUDE: Back-up my hard drive? You mean on my computer?
ANNOUNCER: You use your computer for everything these days, from shopping online to gathering information to keeping up with the news.
(SOUND: TYPING furiously underneath)
GAL: I’ve got my family photo album right at my fingertips.
DUDE: My entire CD collection is there, all 900 disks worth!
ANNOUNCER: But did you realize that you’re just one small, electronic blip from losing it all, one sudden disk drive failure from having everything you own disappear?
(SOUND: A mechanical K-THUNK and the WHIRRING DOWN of the fan, SILENCE.)
GAL: Hello?
DUDE: Wait! Where did all my music go?
(MUSIC: Jaunty LIBRARY tune from the 1960s)
ANNOUNCER: It can come without warning, and when it does there is little you can do to bring it all back unless you’ve properly backed-up your drive. Gone are all your precious memories, your hard work, even your passwords, preferences and settings. Gone, in a single instant.
DUDE: Bummer.
ANNOUNCER: And when you do finally get your computer operational it could take days before you can sort through re-establishing all your accounts, relocating and building your bookmarks, figuring out exactly what was lost and whether or not you could replace it. And for you writers out there, imagine all those pages and pages you’ve written that suddenly won’t be there.
GAL: I think I might cry.
ANNOUNCER: It doesn’t have to be this way. Whether you use the cloud or an external hard drive, all it takes is a little time putting things in place now so that you can avert tragedy later. And backing up is easy. In some cases you can set up a program to do it for you automatically overnight so that you can sleep soundly knowing that, short of an electromagnetic pulse, you won’t lose any of your valuable digital files.
DUDE: Electromagnetic what?
ANNOUNCER: For the health and sanity of you, your loved ones, and your computer, back-up your hard drive.
(MUSIC OUT)
I never think of things like this.
Tech Boy, however, thinks of things like that… fortunately. I now have a nice pink external hard drive thingy.
Aaaaand back to work.
I think many people don’t back up their computers because they don’t know how to do it. Anyone got a tutorial they’d like to share?
the problem is that how you back up depends on so many factors. what computer you have, storage options, etc. i know people who back everything up to “the cloud,” an internet-based drop box where things automatically get sent. my wife thinks i’m a little paranoid that i don’t like using storage that i cannot fully control, but there is no guarantee that the cloud will always be… just like real clouds!
the easiest on-site solution is to get some sort of external storage and manually save things on a regular basis. even just using a flash drive will work for many.
but a complete hard drive failure includes so many things beside just files. i lost a great deal of my preferences and settings — the look of things as well as stored notes, lot’s of little stuff i never would have thought to (or been able to) back up on a portable drive. the next simplest solution is an external hard drive that can store an entire hard drive’s worth of stuff, which i have bu didn’t back up with the sort of regularity that would have been helpful. i also failed to back up many of the system files, so that was another problem.
mac owners have the option to store on an external drive using a program called time machine which keeps a full span of back-ups — daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly. it can be set to work automatically and, with the right equipment, wirelessly.
at this point i am also considering multiple options. losing two-month’s worth of writing is gut wrenching, and i really should have known better.