Daily Dose of Common Sense

We’ve all heard joke versions of “there’s two kinds of people in the world”. Those who get Seinfeld, and those who don’t, etc.

But in the computer business, it’s for real, and it breaks down to those who have already experienced a hard drive failure, and those who will. Because unless you are unfortunate enough to die shortly after first using a computer, there sure as shit isn’t anyone who will escape.

Google is an interesting source of data on this because they run their computer infrastructure not by buying less of the higher-quality, expensive business equipment, but by buying more consumer-grade gear and linking it up smartly so the failures get taken care of automatically (key point – I’ll come back to it in a bit).

Their data shows that, on average, there is roughly a 20% chance of a hard drive failing in the first 3 years. Now, I’m no statistics guru, but I think no matter how you slice and dice those odds, it shows that almost everyone reading these words is at least due–if not long overdue–for a drive failure.

But here’s where we run smack dab into one of the biggest quirks of human nature. That sub-conscious pattern-matching faculty in our brain that we call intuition is, very frequently, lousy at correctly perceiving risk. In the case of data loss, even if we soberly judge the odds, we tend not to appreciate how disastrous the consequences can be.

Perhaps it’s because there isn’t a visceral image for our minds of the disaster scenario. We’ve all seen video on the evening news of people coping with the awful aftermath of a fire, where even one that only results in property damage is devastating. So we remember to buy extinguishers and check our smoke alarm batteries. But there’s no such mental image to show us what it would be like if some PhD candidate lost their dissertation, or what it was actually like for the many small businesses in the Gulf Coast region who couldn’t reopen after Hurricane Katrina because they had lost all of their computer data.

So, hopefully I’ve frightened you into action. What is the best way to backup? It all depends on your situation, of course, so nothing beats using common sense and perusing your favorite, trusted tech sites. For most of us, though, some combination of external hard drives and/or on-line backup services will do the trick nicely. The “and” in that “and/or” isn’t just for show, by the way. If your data is really important TO YOU (hint, hint), multiple backup methods or devices (like keeping a 2nd external hard drive somewhere else and swapping them once a month) are a must.

By far, however, the most important thing is for the process to be AUTOMATIC. Honestly, that is so important that if I didn’t consider it obnoxious (and if Jodi wouldn’t smack me for trying), I’d animate that word with loud music and garish red arrows. No matter how much you may think you are super organized and motivated, we are human, and we get even more forgetful than normal when it comes to boring, repetitive tasks with no immediate reward.

So, I don’t care how energy conscious you are, keep that external hard drive plugged in and turned on 24×7. Your computer’s power settings will minimize it’s consumption when it’s not actually being used at 2am by your backup program, and if you want to make up the difference, get some of those fancy compact fluorescent bulbs.

Wow, isn’t this a great feeling? You’ve got your automatic backup in place now and you can rest easy that your data is safe. Well, a lot of people have felt that way, only to get bitch-slapped by reality when it came time to actually restore their data. Yes, that’s right, there’s an equally important second half of the process. At least once a year you should do a test restore of your data, the geek equivalent of a fire drill, and just as exciting but also just as vital. You don’t necessarily need to go hog wild and make sure you know how to import hidden email folders, but you darn well want to make sure a different computer can read the hard drive, or you have access to your on-line backup account when the password isn’t remembered for you, etc. At the very least, check that the quantity of data is about right. If you know that you have 20GB of MP3s and your external hard drive contains 100MB of data, something is wrong.

But fear not, when (NOT IF!) disaster strikes and you are unprepared, you can always contact a data recovery firm and be prepared to spend perhaps thousands of dollars for a very uncertain outcome. Feel free to contact me as well, so I can gloat and mockingly shout “I told you!”. Seriously, you’ve been warned.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at 1:01 pm and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.