Just a reminder to back up your files, including your flashdrives.

Yesterday, I got a vivid reminder when I inserted my flashdrive with my latest files on it and it read blank with 0 files on it. Unfortunately, I had not backed it up for a while. I was a little upset to say the least.

I was lucky to be able to recover most of the files using data recovery software, but it took hours to do so.

So, do yourself a favor and take time to back your stuff up.

Timely post ... thanks.

It's been on my mind lately to buy something like a USB external hard drive to b/u my laptop.

I'd like something that includes some good software.

Anyone have a suggestion?

Backing up is always a good idea. We have software that does it automatically. Mine goes for Wednesday around lunch ti

There are two types of hard drives on earth.

1. Those that have failed.

and

2. Those that ARE GOING TO.

Substitute "hard drive" for your storage medium of choice and the adage is just as valid.

Much can be said on this topic.

Along with a slew of other things, it is important to have "off site" storage of your data. It does little good for you to have it all stored on multiple drives on two or more different computers for redundancy if it is all in the same house.

God forbid, but IF you suffered a calamitous loss from a fire, flood, earthquake (pick your favorite natural disaster) or some such, your redundant back-ups are about worthless at that point.

Nice reminder, thanks. I would hate to lose all my pictures.

I am very AR and this is the one thing the Admrial and I agree on. Each and every time I download photos, the very next step do is upload to a photo hosting / printing site. I do back up to disk also.

Some time in 2006 I had to wipe my drives and when restoring the data I discovered that I had duplicated coping 2003's photos on a disk I thought I had marked as 2004. It cost me $40 to have the service burn me a 2004 disk - but I was sure glad to pay it.

I use www.dotphoto.com for at least 5 years now with out a single glitch. I am on the $5 / month plan with 24 free prints with a roll over feature.

What happens if somebody trips over the power cord for the internet ?

My USB drive has become the repository for nearly everything of mine except photos. I work on three different machines, so these large USB drives are a Godsend. It gets backed up to my desktop; all photos are backed up from one hard drive to another on the same desktop system. The desktop is then backed up to a USB hard drive which is under lock & key most of the time.

This way, all data lives in at least two physical places, in some cases three, and if the bad guys decide to make off with my desktop system the data is still locked up.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people, and the amount & importance of their data, that is never backed up. It's so sad when you consider the importance of digital photos.

The photos would still be on my hard drive - the way the service works is that you drag the folder from your hard dirve of photos you wish to upload on to a window on thier site and a java application does the uploading and shows a progress report. In the event of a power failure the data would still be on my computer. I also do not reformat the SD card until I know the files have been uploaded.

I have a USB hard drive - they are quite inexpensive these days - that I backup most of my important stuff, including photos.

I also copy all photos to CD or DVD for safe keeping. I admit though, that the CDs don't get burned in a timely fashion - maybe only twice per year. But they are also on the USB drive, so I always have at least one copy.

Time Machine.

I've said this before, but I highly recommend a Raid array in your main home computer - Raid 0 mirrors everything onto two hard drives. It looks like a single hard drive to the computer, but the data goes two ways.

It was built in to my motherboard, so all I had to do was buy a second identical hard drive (both 300 mb - $79 apeice) and configure it. It took about 30 minutes to do, and now I don't have to worry about a hard drive crash.

I do still have a third firewire hard drive that I use to back up periodically to.

I have a raid array on my computer for the redundancy. Make sure you set up "my documents" to save to the raid drive.

I have also been pondering a FTP site to remotely store everything as an additional back up.