The importance of backing up everything you do
A big vote of thanks: this column received a large and sympathetic mailbag after revealing last week that I had inadvertently erased files from my computer. The good news is that I had indeed made a complete back-up before going away and so have lost only files created during my six-week trip: 50 at most.
I brought the subject up last week as a generalised warning to people about the need to make back-ups. I mention it again this week because I now finally appreciate why I have relentlessly been making back-ups since my earliest days of computing, and hope that maybe I can prompt some readers to start doing the same. Your computer files can be a valuable asset. They need protecting.
I back everything up about every 10 days, sometimes more frequently, to external hard drives. Backing up computer files needs to be done with care: it was during a back-up that my file loss occurred. I thought I was deleting an earlier generation of back-ups (I always keep two or three), but instead deleted the current files. It was a rookie mistake.
Less stupid was my decision to make a back-up before going away, and leaving it behind. That's called off-site storage. It has been my saviour. Backing up brings peace of mind. You should also idiot-proof the process, believe me. What I have to say about an operating system that allows me to be so stupid cannot be printed in this forum. What can be printed is some sage advice from correspondents.
One reader wrote:
"I have lost two hard drives and know what it feels like, to feel that all is lost. Yes, having a backup is some comfort, but you had everything you needed at your fingertips. Starting again is somewhat refreshing (and in time, we will do it again).
"You might want to shift your back-ups to include the following: (1) Hard copy: files on media (you can move around with the files); (2) External drive: volume of data that can be stored; (3) Online backup: a light duplicate of your daily computing.
"Item 3 provides the most flexibility. Online back-up can be a selection of the following:
"For e-mail: Gmail. Any e-mail coming in will be saved to your Gmail account. You can retrieve copy from almost any device, such as computer or smartphone.
"For data Files: (a) Mozy. For a fee, you can connect to their service and save portions of your hard drive data to their cloud service at regular intervals. (b) The Mac version is called Mobile Me (to mirror your hard drive and phone).
"For key Files: Microsoft Skydrive. Free place to put one file at a time online.
"A rule of thumb: One external drive a year. A drive of one terabyte (1,000 gigabytes) should be appropriate. Do not, repeat not, fill the drive to capacity. Only plan to use 75 percent. Every six months, move files off your machine. Make a physical copy of files that are almost impossible to replace. Machines will last two to three years, with daily wear and tear."
All good advice, although your files may not take up 1,000 gigabytes. Mine run around 24 gigs, so I back up to smaller external hard drives, one of which I carry with me, the other of which I (apparently) store off-site.
Several readers wrote about lost files not necessarily being lost at all. This was typical:
"It is usually possible to recover deleted files. The deletion removes the link to the data, but does not remove the data itself. Software is available to recover deleted data, but as a last resort you send the hard drive away and someone recovers everything, probably at vast expense.
"Most people seem to have no concept of backups and how important they are, just like any other insurance. Keeping the backups somewhere off-site, away from the computer, is even better, although having them in another country may not be the most convenient location."
Me again. I have sensitive information on my computer, and so could not have other eyes peeking at it. I should note that, a week on from the horrid event itself, I was at one with what happened. Don Juan, the Yaqui brujo in the books by Carlos Castaneda, mentioned several times the importance of regularly destroying one's personal history, to reduce the baggage.
It is perhaps not often sufficiently stressed that reading this column can be injurious to your well-being. A reader wrote: "Your column caused me great anguish. First of all, I had great sympathy for you.
Then, a combination of my paranoia about losing data and the storm-force winds that prevailed throughout the night caused me to have a night-long nightmare in which I was trying to reorganise some data and couldn't, because part of it was lost.
As a result of the sleepless night (I finally gave up; the dream was too awful and the winds caused a great deal of indefinable banging), I have been useless today."
In other good news (for me), I was able to return to Bermuda on Tuesday this week, the day before snow shut Gatwick and wrought havoc with airline flights. Also no longer flying was a bird that found its way down the chimney into my house at Ferry Reach and, in its panic, did a pretty good job of trashing the place before dying under the couch.
Quite a week, then.