Since we talking about two other tedious things today that people love to avoid - cleaning and writing wills - I think it's the perfect time to ask you all:
When was the last time you backed up your computer?
About a month ago now, I experienced my very first computer failure ever. I have been a Mac user for about 20 years now, and had the mistaken notion that Macs don't crash. I didn't literally believe this, but felt that the superior design of Macs lent some protection. (Right, the sun only shines for Mac users LOL). But it had never happened to me, so .... you know .... a back up plan just wasn't a huge priority. In the last month, though, I have heard many times now that "it's not if, but when." I don't need to hear that mantra for a very long time.
To make a long story short, we lost all of our family photos from 2007. There is no chance of recovery. We sent my computer to the top data recovery companies that my husband's law firm uses and that are recommended by Apple (Drivesavers in Marin County and Kroll, which is an international firm that does data recovery for lawsuits!), and they both said we are SOL. They were extremely nice about it, but still SOL.
The damage to the drive was "catastrophic" and their engineers thought is was a power surge that did it. I found out recently that about the time my computer died, a house in the neighborhood was struck by lightening during the last bunch of storms, causing surrounding houses to lose their computers and cable and etc. So yes, that's right, there is a good chance my computer was struck by lightening, and there ain't no surge protector that can help with that.
The really sad part is that just three days before this happened, I told my dh that we have to get serious about backing up the photos. We dragged ourselves down to the Apple store and bought the new OS which includes their new fancy pants uber back up system. But we didn't install it that day, and three days later it was over.
Needless to say, I had no prints, no photos uploaded to those myriad photo sharing sites, and precious few emailed to friends. So painful, and yet so preventable. Luckily, we have November and December 2007, which we never uploaded, and a ton of pics taken by friends of Easter, Fourth of July, his first birthday, a trip to Yosemite, and some visits from my parents, so there are pics from 2007. Just not the gorgeous and precious and intimate ones that I took myself, and no videos.
So: when was the last time you backed up? Some tips from my experience: your laptop needs a surge protector every time you plug it in; you need an external drive and a web based back up (there are many companies that do this) to be safe; and you need software that does your backups automatically.
Do it today!
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