Word Of Advice

Backup your data, now.
I'm not kidding, right this minute.
Stop reading this and go backup any important digital data you have. Hard drives can fail. It happens everyday. People lose important documents, pics, videos, music, etc. all because they trusted their one storage solution.

I give you this advice, because I was reminded of this lesson this week.

About a year ago, I started using an external drive on a regular basis. I mostly bought it to hold my iTunes files. Since iTunes doesn't want you to be able to sync your iPhone with multiple computers, I decided to work around that by holding all my files on that one drive and carrying it with me. That way, whether I was at home, church, or work, I always had access to that info. It worked out really well until a couple days ago when the drive died. I've researched it and talked to professionals. It is dead. Apparently the drive motor died. It is possible to get the information off, but it would cost close to $1000 and that's just not something I'm willing to pay.

I was fortunate though. Almost everything I had on that drive was either backed up elsewhere, or I still have the original CD's that I can reload. So far, I only know of 1 important thing that was lost. My tax files. I'd done our taxes on turbo tax for the past 5 years. Sadly, I think somehow that was the only place I had those files stored. I'm hoping I made a hardcopy last year of the actual returns, but I don't have a good feeling about it.

Today I will be purchasing a new external drive (maybe 2 =), and making sure I have multiple copies of everything. You should do the same.