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Over the years I have experienced the loss of many of my stories due to the failure of storage media. Lately, I've tried to back things up with portable USB Hard Drives, and Thumb Drives, and all seem to fail eventually. A Story that I started back in the late 70s is still with me because the whole thing was printed out on a Dot Matrix Printer. I hope to eventually get back to work on it.
I 'think' I have lost about half of a large work due to the failure of a portable Hard Drive. I "thought" it was backed up in more than one place ... I know that is a lame and pathetic excuse. I'm still looking for what is lost. A 1 TB hard drive is a lot of stuff to sort through, plus close to 4 TB of other storage...
I think it is obvious that I need a sound thrashing, but it will have to be self administered.
I briefly considered using Microsoft's 'OneDrive", or the Google Cloud, but I think that would just increase my vulnerability.
Other than vowing to myself to be much more diligent with my own data backup, I do not know a more effective solution.
Gwen
Comments
The Truth about backups ...
Well, the first thing about backups that every sysadmin knows is: "Nobody wants backup, everybody wants restore."
So, try to restore your backups to a fresh disk (partition, directory, whatever) at least every few months. And then compare that restored data with the originals.
If you think this is too much trouble, then your data simply isnt't worth it – in fact it seems to be worthless. As you will lose it. It is not a matter of "if" but of "when".
backups
I keep a large flashdrive in my pc. Back up several times a day to that and remove it at night. Once every 1-2 weeks, I also back up to a large (2TB) external hard drive. So 3 copies all told.
Backup in the Old Days
Backup was much easier in the old days, Pre-2000, because there was less data, and I could sort of use DOS to use *.* to ??? whatever. Now days, it seems so much more complicated. I have officially entered the twilight of my old age, so things seem harder. With this latest loss feeling so crushing, I know that I've got to do something immediately, since sooner is impossible.
Thanks
Gwen
There are only two kinds of drives:
Ones that have already failed, and ones that will fail. Eternal drives don't exist and never will.
Maintaining backups is dynamic thing. Test periodically, eg. monthly the backups you have, and if any of them fails, discard the drive, get a new one and back up on it. Thus, you will replace all your drives many times - get used to the idea. Lost drive is far easier to replace than lost data.
Testing backups is easy if they are compressed. (This way, you also can get more on a smaller and cheaper drive.) Most compression programs add checksums to the data stored inside the archives, and offer an option to test the archive. If it tests OK, then it almost surely is good. If it doesn't test OK, very likely not only it is bad, but the drive you store it on too. (But if archives on two different drives test bad, maybe your RAM is faulty - make and test a new archive, if the RAM is bad, that would test bad too.)
Success!
Learning about Backups
I spent the afternoon out in the bloody rain talking to people at various stores about Backing up. Even the folk at downtown Microsoft Store understood my reticence to trust OneDrive. Aren't Writers normally paranoid about sharing unsuitable unfinished work?
I've now got an IT guy friend coming to look at my mess, and I bought two 550 GB SSDs. Apparently these things automatically DO Backup. Though I have lots of pics, I'm really only interested in Backing Up Doc files.
I did briefly look at Word Perfect but did not purchase it because I can sort of put up with the idiosyncrasies of MS Word. I know that some of you are full on Geeks and what I am saying is boringly basic. I am however, one of those mildly learning disabled folk who has told the experts to "F" off, and as difficult as it has been, done surprisingly well with 'puters and I think I'm doing OK but with some struggles at times.
I just keep asking dumb questions until they throw me out.
Gwen
SSD Data Retention Time
SSDs are not very good for long data retention when unpowered. If you operate them at normal temparature (air condition working ...) and then leave them unpowered (PC and air conditioning switched off) at higher temperatures, they might lose data in a few weeks. Yes, single digit numbers of weeks.
They are NOT suitable for storing backups.
Use the subject string as a search term for reports about this.
Perhaps Return them Then?
Oh well, I'll likely return one of them. I want to keep the other one just to play with. :)
Now, I have perhaps 200,000 words to rewrite from memory. Perhaps the second time will be best?
Thank you
Gwen
Home backups
To me, a home user is still best served using multiple copies of data on multiple spinning rust drives.
Offsite backups like to a safety deposit box would prevent a catastrophe like fire or ransomware from killing your data.
50GB blu-ray disk backups for small backups can last a good number of years, stored in a good environment. It has the advantage of portability and being relatively cheap.
I love the Microsoft cloud
I'm the opposite of you. I store everything in the cloud and keep a local copy of the files I use frequently on the local hard drive. This is all actually all automatic with Office 365 and Microsoft OneDrive. This is what OneDrive was designed to do. I use two different PC's and two mobile devices (a phone and tablet) and have access to my files on all of them. OneDrive also does versioning so all versions from the last thirty days are available as a backup. File sharing is also easy, you can share a link so other people can access the cloud version of a file or just send them the file. You can give different levels of access also and with commercial versions of OneDrive you can give temporary access with copy restrictions on files and automatically expiring access.
I resist any commercial cloud based solutions
Privacy is my main concern and the cloud has been known to fail too due to some connectivity issue or another.
If you can afford it and have a good isp with good uplink speed then you can create your own server, essentially hosting your own cloud, encrypted the way you like it.
Yes, residential plans may have ‘no server’ clauses but small usage is not an issue.
I found It !!!
I found all the lost files !!!!
Alhumduallah !!!
Gwen