[Technology] You back-up your data, right?

[dazzer6666]

For most families, "photos of the kids" probably comes under "important data". You wouldn't want to lose absolutely every photo of your child right from positive pregnancy test to university graduation.

Agreed.....I had ours stored on an external drive and the PC HDD with the external the primary home. The drive fried, I had neglected to back up for ages. Had to spend several hundred pounds to get the pics recovered from the drive. Lesson learned

 

[FatSuperman]

Some interesting solutions in here. For the lazy, I recommend the cloud storage model. Pay a monthly/annual fee and have everything you do automatically saved in Microsoft/Apple/Google/Amazon/Etc data centres around the world. When your laptop dies, buy a new one and log in, everything is there. Happened to me twice in the past 5 years - it's made losing data a non-existent problem.

For the non-tech literate, I would suggest going with the default provider for your device - Apple iCloud if you use a Mac, OneDrive if you use Windows, either of these will work on your phone as well, for phone pics etc to be backed up live.

 

[Worried Man Blues]

99% of us don't really have "important data" do we?

Google give you free 15GB of cloud storage, Amazon give members unlimited photo storage.

Forget the kids, what about that picture of you outside the Goldstone, worth it weight in er GOLD!

 

[Lyndhurst 14]

Our IT guy at work said he doesn't trust the security of the online / cloud back up storage systems as their have been so many major security breaches of large American corporations. He would be concerned that his data could be compromised by a third party hacker

He will only use an external hard drive back up which is physically in the same room as his PC.

I will continue to use the various cloud back ups available but it did make me think a bit

 

[boik]

As a Luddite - am I ok if my photos are all on iPhone and I back up to iCloud?

If you lose your phone, do you definitely know your icloud login and password? Or do you just rely on your phone to fill it in for you?

 

[maffew]

99% of us don't really have "important data" do we?

Google give you free 15GB of cloud storage, Amazon give members unlimited photo storage.

I reckon 99% of us DO have important data, though many probably dont realise it (until you've lost it, contact numbers, photos on phones, emails on local files on computer, a single hard drive whatever)

 

[Bodian]

I wiped out my entire photo collection (7TB) on Tuesday when I made a mistake configuring (extending) a hard drive partition.

Ah, well - this is where you go wrong - a little knowledge is dangerous. Steer clear of doing anything fancy!!

 

[Wozza]

Ah, well - this is where you go wrong - a little knowledge is dangerous. Steer clear of doing anything fancy!!

Well, it was self-inflicted this time, but a valuable lession. As outlined above, I was well-covered - but it's still a v stressful situation.

 

[Super Steve Earle]

For many people, myself probably included, the most likely way I'll delete valuable data is by trying to back it up! But appreciate the well intentioned advice and may consult a young in as I do have a external hard drive.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

For most families, "photos of the kids" probably comes under "important data". You wouldn't want to lose absolutely every photo of your child right from positive pregnancy test to university graduation.

But nobody ever looks at them ever again.

Just added clutter and detritus.

 

[Dave the OAP]

One of the advantages of working for a Availability Services/ cloud Services / Business continuity company!

 

[Westdene Seagull]

Our IT guy at work said he doesn't trust the security of the online / cloud back up storage systems as their have been so many major security breaches of large American corporations. He would be concerned that his data could be compromised by a third party hacker

He will only use an external hard drive back up which is physically in the same room as his PC.

I will continue to use the various cloud back ups available but it did make me think a bit

As someone that's worked in IT for over 30 years I'd say your 'IT Guy' doesn't know what he's talking about and the risk of using an external HD for backups is ridiculous.

 

[Dave the OAP]

As someone that's worked in IT for over 30 years I'd say your 'IT Guy' doesn't know what he's talking about and the risk of using an external HD for backups is ridiculous.

I concur

The IT guy is an idiot and needs sacking!

 

[Official Old Man]

I've just renewed my laptop, with no hard drive!
Over the years I've had three towers and three laptops. How do I know? Because I keep each drive from them. Once I move on I copy all important files & pics to the new drive.
My latest laptop is SSD with a few bits of memory so bought a USB adaptor and use the 1TB drive from the old laptop as back up.
On top of that is a 2TB Western Digital onto which all data is backed up automatically via WiFi.

 

[Weststander]

I got lucky many years ago. I very rarely backed up, but did one day to an external HDD.

A week later I turned on my Dell desktop and a faux FBI had taken over the pc. Turns out it was Ransomware, when no one mentioned that sort of thing at that time.

As they’d taken total control, I didn’t know where to start, so I used a computer consultant to restore from the HDD. He had to create another new drive within the pc’s own HDD.

I had highly rated anti virus and firewall software, and was up to date with updates, btw.

 

[Dave the OAP]

I've just renewed my laptop, with no hard drive!
Over the years I've had three towers and three laptops. How do I know? Because I keep each drive from them. Once I move on I copy all important files & pics to the new drive.
My latest laptop is SSD with a few bits of memory so bought a USB adaptor and use the 1TB drive from the old laptop as back up.
On top of that is a 2TB Western Digital onto which all data is backed up automatically via WiFi.

Wher do you keep all these backup devices?

 

[pigbite]

Our IT guy at work said he doesn't trust the security of the online / cloud back up storage systems as their have been so many major security breaches of large American corporations. He would be concerned that his data could be compromised by a third party hacker

He will only use an external hard drive back up which is physically in the same room as his PC.

I will continue to use the various cloud back ups available but it did make me think a bit

Just like the Phds who think the COVID vaccine is pointless, man made climate change is fake, evolution is "just a theory" and the earth suffered a global deluge 4300 years ago survived only by 8 people and all the animals on a wooden boat.

Scepticism is not the same as irrationality.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Just a friendly reminder that backing-up precious data is A Really Good Idea.

I wiped out my entire photo collection (7TB) on Tuesday when I made a mistake configuring (extending) a hard drive partition.

I had a restore option which probably would have worked, but I wouldn't have known until next day. An excruciating overnight wait when the data is so precious.

Thankfully, I have two full back-ups on the go (as well as some partial back-ups)...

1) An always-on, remote back-up at (the excellent) www.backblaze.com/ - but the data is so big I would have had to have requested a hard disk be shipped from the US. Not ideal.

2) A weekly incremental back-up to an external hard disk. I'd just come back from a week away, so this 100% was up to date.

Within a few hours I saw this....

View attachment 141900

*phew*

Backblaze costs something like £50/year (haven't looked for a while). The external drive was around £150. Worth every penny.

Sorry it's not an entertaining data loss story. But, seriously, back-up your important data folks!

Good thread. Glad you got your photos back (I could have restored one for you - a photo of the Amex with poppies that you posted 10 ish years ago and I saved).

I keep everything on the cloud (a work cloud) plus four (yes four) portable terrabyte external hard drives.

(and....exhale)

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Wher do you keep all these backup devices?

In the shed, next to the parrafin and creosote?

 

[dazzer6666]

Our IT guy at work said he doesn't trust the security of the online / cloud back up storage systems as their have been so many major security breaches of large American corporations. He would be concerned that his data could be compromised by a third party hacker

He will only use an external hard drive back up which is physically in the same room as his PC.

I will continue to use the various cloud back ups available but it did make me think a bit

……breaking essentially rule no 1 of any contingency plan……..