A cautionary tale about laptops...

[bort]

Always, always, always back up the files on your laptop. Always.

I have a 1-year old HP laptop, and for some reason, the hard drive just plain failed on it on Wednesday. Totally shot, and had to be replaced.

Replacing the hard drive itself wasn't difficult, just a few screws and reinstalling everything. BUT the part that kept me from going crazy is that a few months ago, I subscribed to an online file backup service (Mozy Home). Costs about $100/year for my service, and takes me about 15 hours to upload/download everything. But holy crap, do I feel lucky about having ALL of my files available to simply re-load onto my computer. This could have been an utter disaster, but instead ended up with a few hours spent reinstalling things. Plus, now I have an SSD hard drive, which is SO much faster (and less prone to damage) than the normal hard disk drive.

Anyway, ALWAYS back up your computers!

[bort]

That makes sense too. Whatever it is, just have a backup plan!

[Bob Kolada]

Important files..?? Like the pictures of my brother's dog??

[bort]

Important files..?? Like the pictures of my brother's dog??

Is there anything *more* important than that?

[bort]

Important files..?? Like the pictures of my brother's dog??

Is there anything *more* important than that?

Beer, tubas, women?

Well clearly. But as far as computers go, I had a LOT of work saved on here, and work = $$$.

[TubaTodd]

I have a thorough backup routine.

1:50AM

* Backup my config files from my home server to my laptop

2AM Backup

* rsnapshot backup of my laptop to an external hard drive
* rsync backup of my laptop to my home server

I also have an "off sight" backup. Basically it's an external drive with my most important stuff that my inlaws keep at their house. My wife's computer backs up to the server @ 5AM.

[Wyvern]

I use Dropbox which backs up all my data completely automatically and enables me to access on desktop, laptop and even my iPhone. I find this invaluable when I am on the move so much.

[bort]

The funny thing is, for well over a year, my wife had kept reminding me to get us set up for a backup service. I finally "got around to it" in March, and I can't say how relieved I am to have done that. I was so naive to not do it sooner!