Day 79
I have become a backup freak. I'm seriously paranoid about losing my data, especially my works in progress that I back up all the time, with multiple back ups and different ways to do them. Better safe than sorry. I've had computers or hard drives quitting on me so many times and I once had to reconstruct the entire data drive (with a file salvage software) because, well, I didn't have a good back up.
Now I back up my stuff with all of the following:
- USB drives (mostly just documents include THE NOVEL)
- DVD
- Apple iDisk
- Dropbox
- multiple external drives
- Apple Time Machine
The external hard drives and USB drives are for peace of mind in case I don't have Internet connection. Still, file management is an issue -- I always end up with multiple versions of everything, and I need to make sure I don't overwrite the most current versions. But with storage devices so cheap now (you can get a 250GB drive for under $100 and a 4GB US drive for about $10), it's good to have everything -- sort of a history or work trail. It's kind of cool.
But mostly I depend on Dropbox to keep my most used files up to date. Dropbox also allows me to share work with others and it keeps versions -- so I get versioning for free. In fact, Dropbox is free and they give you 2GB just to start; that's enough for most day-to-day use. [If anyone wants to sign up for Dropbox, let me know, so we can both get free space upgrades].
Apple Time Machine is great as well -- it's one of the easiest to use, most elegant way to back up my entire system. I mean, everything, and it goes back months or even years. I can, literally, search for a file I deleted six months ago and retrieve it. While I haven't done it myself, I know people who has effortlessly restore (or reinstall) their Macs using Time Machine. I have never had such luxury when using Windows -- something always went wrong. So that's very impressive.
The only problem is, I've got to remember what I have/had at a give time. If I lost a file or an entire folder, I'd have to know "when" to look for it so I'd get the right stuff, and not an older version. So that could be a challenge for someone as absent-minded as I.
1000 words, 28100 words total
286 days and 157400 words to go
Now I back up my stuff with all of the following:
- USB drives (mostly just documents include THE NOVEL)
- DVD
- Apple iDisk
- Dropbox
- multiple external drives
- Apple Time Machine
The external hard drives and USB drives are for peace of mind in case I don't have Internet connection. Still, file management is an issue -- I always end up with multiple versions of everything, and I need to make sure I don't overwrite the most current versions. But with storage devices so cheap now (you can get a 250GB drive for under $100 and a 4GB US drive for about $10), it's good to have everything -- sort of a history or work trail. It's kind of cool.
But mostly I depend on Dropbox to keep my most used files up to date. Dropbox also allows me to share work with others and it keeps versions -- so I get versioning for free. In fact, Dropbox is free and they give you 2GB just to start; that's enough for most day-to-day use. [If anyone wants to sign up for Dropbox, let me know, so we can both get free space upgrades].
Apple Time Machine is great as well -- it's one of the easiest to use, most elegant way to back up my entire system. I mean, everything, and it goes back months or even years. I can, literally, search for a file I deleted six months ago and retrieve it. While I haven't done it myself, I know people who has effortlessly restore (or reinstall) their Macs using Time Machine. I have never had such luxury when using Windows -- something always went wrong. So that's very impressive.
The only problem is, I've got to remember what I have/had at a give time. If I lost a file or an entire folder, I'd have to know "when" to look for it so I'd get the right stuff, and not an older version. So that could be a challenge for someone as absent-minded as I.
1000 words, 28100 words total
286 days and 157400 words to go
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