I’m ALWAYS pounding people to backup. I will continue. BACKUP YOUR STUFF. If you care about it, back it up.
Let’s talk. Yes, I’m talking to you, non-technical friend. You’re a writer, a blogger, not a techie. I get that. Can’t be bothered, I get that. Very busy. You will be even busier when you lose access to your dropbox, or leave your laptop on a train.
Please. Read. Tell your friends.
These are NOT backups
Here are some things that are NOT backups. Feel free to tweet or Facebook them to shame educate your family.
- Backing up your laptop to an SD Card in the same laptop is not a backup
- Backing up to a hard drive that is 6 inches away from your computer is not a backup
- Backing up your Gmail to another Gmail account is not a backup
- Backing up your book by copying it to another folder is not a backup
- The photos that are still in your camera memory are not a backup
Do you have any other good examples?
The Backup Rule of Three
Here’s the rule of three. It’s a long time computer-person rule of thumb that you can apply to your life now. It’s also called the Backup 3-2-1 rule.
- 3 copies of anything you care about – Two isn’t enough if it’s important.
- 2 different formats – Example: Offsite+DVDs or Hard Drive+Memory Stick or CD+ File to Backup, or more
- 1 off-site backup – If the house burns down, how will you get your memories back?
Why so paranoid?
Simple. Because I care about my work, photos and data and I would be sad if I lost it.
Think about all the times you’ve heard about a friend who has lost everything. A decade of photos. Years of email. It hurts- just like exercise – because it’s good for you.
Try restoring from a backup to practice. Backups always succeed. It’s restores that fail.
What should l do?
I think at a minimum folks should do this.
- Have TWO physical backups (hard drive, memory card) with a copy of everything, at least weekly. You can automate this.
- Backup everything that has data that matters. That means phones, too.
- Have a cloud backup storage
- Rotate the physical backups between your house and somewhere else. I use the safety deposit box. You can use your Mama’s house. Just label one “Backup A” and one “Backup B” and when you visit, swap them.