Backing up your work
As I was catching up on fellow writer and friend Lisa Shearin's blog, I noticed she discussed backing up your work. She gave her rituals and noted that they probably weren't particularly obsessive. I have to agree, and to make Lisa more certain she's not alone in her paranoia, I thought I'd review my own backup strategies.
I put each day's work in the following places:
* on the hard disk of the system on which I'm writing it (of course)
* on each of three separate USB keys (because I can)
* on my home server (unless I'm on the road), which is a RAIDed box with multiple disks
On a weekly basis, I copy my work to the following places:
* my main home system
* some remote storage my Web site host provides
Each time I change computers, which is often (you don't even want to know my whole computer setup; it would just make you jealous), I copy all work in progress to it.
Now, do I consider these many copies obsessive? Not at all. I wonder only how I can streamline these processes, automate them so more copies are available.
My goals are simple: when some piece of my tech infrastructure dies, I don't want to waste any more time than is absolutely necessary before I am up and writing again, and I never, never, never want to lose any work.
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6 comments:
You're not the only one who wants nothing lost. (If you're not paranoid about tech breaking on you, you haven't used tech.) I keep my do-not-lose-at-all-costs files on an encrypted flash drive I carry as a "talisman." There are complete file-by-file copies on a hard drive at work, and three separate hard drives at home.
Personally, I wouldn't mind having another one on a RAID NAS box, either.
Ah, a kindred spirit. I completely agree.
There is paranoia and there is protect your butt at all costs. I believe in the CYA theory. There is never too much backup.
I obviously agree!
You learn the power of multiple backups when your external backup hard drive fails. Now, I realize how much data was "archived" on that thing and not in a redundant spot.
Backup your backups!
Current quote is $1200 to fix. So, it sits on my shelf until I feel getting my old pictures (honeymoon!) off it is worth that. Ugh.
I completely understand. I had one of my RAIDed drives die a while ago--which is why I went for a RAID system. Backing up the backup; that's for me.
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