[LESS INFO] 2 VIEWS | ADDED 02:40:07 02/21/09
I like to think of myself as the UberGeek... the total computer geek... after all I started back in the early 1980s with a TRS-80 Model III and went up the personal computing ladder with every 8bit, 16bit, 32-bit and now 64-bit OS on Earth.
And since the early 1990s I always cared about backups... by early 1990s with Tape Backups.... by mid 1990 with the first 2x SCSI CD writers....
By early 2000 I was still using Tape Backups (4-8 GB per tape) http://tinyurl.com/bzkphy
By 2002 I was doing HD images with Powerquest drive image every ~6 months, and backups on CDs... until the pile of CDs got too high.
Then I decided to put CDs and Tapes to rest... I just got a RAID controller and things were safe.
Nowadays I just keep one SATA RAID controller operational in my main desktop, but that's about it.
I totally forgot about backing up my notebooks (two of them, both of the same age, 2003 and 2004 AMD Athlon 64 powerhouses which are single-core but with 1Gig of RAM each work wonders).
So.. to cut the babbling... I have the main desktop where I sit throughout the day with mirrored HDs... and one of the notebooks right by the bed, so I can scrible on my blog and answer e-mail while laying in horizontal position.
Of course I know there's a plethora of software out there that can do backups over the Network (and I have a Gigabit home LAN with NAS servers!!). So did I install it? Did I use it?.
OF COURSE NO, I DIDNT!!.
And what happened earlier today? My 80GB hard drive DIED, that's what f*cking happened!.
And was there trivial stuff, easily replaceable?.
OF COURSE NOT!!
I had there a dozen folders with ideas, notes, "cool images" I was gonna use on my politics blog, and one special folder full of SOFTWARE (php scripts) that I spent the last week choosing after HOURS of browsing.
Oh you know what else I had there? SOURCE CODE for some Bash scripts I've been working on over the years.
Something else? Well let me think... oh yes I had the passwords for my home banking, all my imap accounts, scanned invoices, you name it!.
And yes indeed, I feel like a moron now. I am one, I reckon.
The good news:
1. My to-do list has been replaced with:
INSTALL AUTOMATED NETWORK BACKUP SOFTWARE (so at least \desktop is backed up regularly to a central NAS)
2. BUY A SOLID STATE DISK to replace the 2.5" 80GB HD in my other notebook, before it fails too
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR