Yeah, it happened. And I don't mean the kind of manageable hard drive failure where you simply take the defunct hard drive out, and convert it into a slave drive inside another PC. Nope, not one of those. It was completely fried. Was I freaking out? Hell yes, quite badly. The world had come to an end. Well not really, but I was pretty freaked. All of my clients' web data, all my college documents, all those pictures of friends and family, all my music and all that stuff I can't mention...... all gone. :) ALL GONE!!
But wait a second, on a whim, didn't I sign up for an online backup service about 3 months earlier? YES, yes I did! And you know what? All of my data was saved. Every Photoshop file, MP3, Word Document, PDF, JPG, you name it, it was right there. It was safe, and waiting patiently for me to re-download.
First, I went to newegg.com, and bought me a new rough and tough hard drive. I then placed overnight delivery on that bad boy. As per usual, New Egg was fast and on time. I then put a fresh version of Windows on my machine. You've got to love that fresh Operating System smell! And lastly, I began downloading all of my content that I had lost from my online backup provider. Then, I was back on track with a ton of work to catch up on. But guess what, I didn't have to explain to my clients that I lost all their info. How embarrassing, and possibly critical that could have been. Plus I didn't lose all my sacred Bozz Scaggs and Debbie Gibson! :)
It took around 1.5 days to download all of the data and get back to 100%. But come on, I think a day and a half is worth a lifetime of digital work and file hording.
So what am I saying? Here is what I'm saying:
2. Backup everything that is important to you. And I mean everything. Because coming from experience, the thought of losing anything important to me, my family or my clients just hurts. Especially when it is so avoidable these days. So spend that extra cash. I use a service that costs less than $60 per year. And again, there are a ton of lower cost or free backup services.
3. Spread the word to everyone you know about how important this service is. I certainly do. But as per usual, you never know how important something like this is until you are faced with a crisis. And that is exactly what it will be, a crisis! So don't let this happen to you or your friends and family. Trust me, I know!
In closing, I just want to say that I can't express to you enough just how important this process is. At least it is if you want to not feel like you've been punched in the gut, after you come home to a fried hard drive. Without hesitation, I tell my story to anyone who will listen. Every house call I go on, I'm sure to bring it up. And you should too. Just try not to be as annoying about it as I am. Because I'm pretty annoying :)
