To all digital artists
I’m not sure how ethical this is, but I just copied and pasted a section out of a blog I check out every morning. If it was wrong to do this, I apologize, but the message it brings is far too important. I work up the street at UMass Lowell and I see this problem every day. I have also had to console fellow photographers who have lost everything and I mean whole sections of their working career, gone in a second.
If you use a computer to create and store your art and do not back up your files, you’re nuts.
Here is the article from scottkelby.com (a Photoshop/Photography blog)
"Our head of IT at Kelby Media Group is a guy named Paul Wilder. He’s one of those guys who has that whole “super-giant uber brain” thing going on, but besides his immense IT skills, he’s really a terrific guy all around (We love Paul!). In fact, he’s so great that he allowed me to share a personal story and while it might be a bit embarrassing for an IT guy like Paul, he felt it was more important to share the story to help other folks avoid a similar nightmare.
Paul’s constantly hounding us all the time to make sure our computers are backed up, and he’s got all sorts of sophisticated back-up systems in place at our headquarters for our servers and such, but like the plumber whose own pipes are leaky, he didn’t have a backup for his home computer. You know what’s coming next, right? Just recently it crashed, and I mean it crashed big time! Over the years, I’ve seen Paul pull some severly crashed drives back from the grave that I would have bet money were gone for good, so the fact that Paul couldn’t repair his drive lets you know the depth of how far south this puppy had gone. It gets worse.
Paul had some absolutely critical data on that drive that could not be replaced, so he was forced to resort to every IT guy’s most dreaded act of desperation—he sent his drive to DriveSavers to see if they could bring it back to life. DriveSavers is known worldwide as the people you call when all else fails, but the reason this is an IT guy’s last resort is that DriveSavers charges a bundle. How big a bundle? $2,500! Now, you might wonder how can they get away with charging $2,500? It’s because they can. And, that’s because they are about the only people on earth who can recover the unrecoverable, and by gosh—they were able to recover his entire drive—-all it’s contents, and Paul says, “It was absolutely worth it.”
Now, if you’re thinking to yourself, “There’s no way I would pay $2,500,” that just means you can’t think of anything worth $2,500 to you on your computer. To Paul, what he lost was worth more to him, and although it was painful to pay $2,500, it would have been more painful not to. Luckily for Paul, he could afford it, but I know a woman who within the last month had her laptop die, and nobody locally could recover it. She had hundreds of absolutely irreplaceable photos on that drive, including the only photos of her grandmother’s funeral, and she was incredibly distraught, but sadly she didn’t have the $2,500 to get it restored, so those photos are simply gone forever.
It’s for stories like those, and thousands more that happen every day, when you least expect it, to regular people just like you and me, is exactly why I made today “Back Up Your Hard Drive” Friday. Stop reading this blog, take a couple of minutes, hook up an external hard drive, and back your stuff up (at the very least, back your photo folder up)."
Depending on your needs you can quickly run to Staples and have a dual 250gig external HD back up system running in ten minutes for under $150. If you are wondering why I only mention the use of hard drives, it’s because they are cheap. If you do the numbers and compare the “real” cost of HD’s vs. burning CD’s or DVD’s, HD’s are a better deal in the long run.
john wren
If you use a computer to create and store your art and do not back up your files, you’re nuts.
Here is the article from scottkelby.com (a Photoshop/Photography blog)
"Our head of IT at Kelby Media Group is a guy named Paul Wilder. He’s one of those guys who has that whole “super-giant uber brain” thing going on, but besides his immense IT skills, he’s really a terrific guy all around (We love Paul!). In fact, he’s so great that he allowed me to share a personal story and while it might be a bit embarrassing for an IT guy like Paul, he felt it was more important to share the story to help other folks avoid a similar nightmare.
Paul’s constantly hounding us all the time to make sure our computers are backed up, and he’s got all sorts of sophisticated back-up systems in place at our headquarters for our servers and such, but like the plumber whose own pipes are leaky, he didn’t have a backup for his home computer. You know what’s coming next, right? Just recently it crashed, and I mean it crashed big time! Over the years, I’ve seen Paul pull some severly crashed drives back from the grave that I would have bet money were gone for good, so the fact that Paul couldn’t repair his drive lets you know the depth of how far south this puppy had gone. It gets worse.
Paul had some absolutely critical data on that drive that could not be replaced, so he was forced to resort to every IT guy’s most dreaded act of desperation—he sent his drive to DriveSavers to see if they could bring it back to life. DriveSavers is known worldwide as the people you call when all else fails, but the reason this is an IT guy’s last resort is that DriveSavers charges a bundle. How big a bundle? $2,500! Now, you might wonder how can they get away with charging $2,500? It’s because they can. And, that’s because they are about the only people on earth who can recover the unrecoverable, and by gosh—they were able to recover his entire drive—-all it’s contents, and Paul says, “It was absolutely worth it.”
Now, if you’re thinking to yourself, “There’s no way I would pay $2,500,” that just means you can’t think of anything worth $2,500 to you on your computer. To Paul, what he lost was worth more to him, and although it was painful to pay $2,500, it would have been more painful not to. Luckily for Paul, he could afford it, but I know a woman who within the last month had her laptop die, and nobody locally could recover it. She had hundreds of absolutely irreplaceable photos on that drive, including the only photos of her grandmother’s funeral, and she was incredibly distraught, but sadly she didn’t have the $2,500 to get it restored, so those photos are simply gone forever.
It’s for stories like those, and thousands more that happen every day, when you least expect it, to regular people just like you and me, is exactly why I made today “Back Up Your Hard Drive” Friday. Stop reading this blog, take a couple of minutes, hook up an external hard drive, and back your stuff up (at the very least, back your photo folder up)."
Depending on your needs you can quickly run to Staples and have a dual 250gig external HD back up system running in ten minutes for under $150. If you are wondering why I only mention the use of hard drives, it’s because they are cheap. If you do the numbers and compare the “real” cost of HD’s vs. burning CD’s or DVD’s, HD’s are a better deal in the long run.
john wren
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Rex on -
Thanks for posting this John. It is SO, SO IMPORTANT to BACKUP!! There are now several automated backup programs costing little or nothing, that you can load, set and forget about, that will do the remembering for you. No reason not to do it.
-
Permalink Reply by Meghan Moore on -
I'm using a couple of different backup methods, but they're manual. Suggest some reliable simple automated ones?
-
Permalink Reply by Maxine on -
John . . . important for anyone who uses the computer for just about anything. In addition to manual back ups I tend to keep copies of stuff that is important to me or too much a PITA to recreate online on my google docs account. Just as a back up to my back up!
-
Permalink Reply by john wren on -
This story has been told over and over again, but unfortunately we seem to never get it until we have lost something valuable or irreplaceable. Sometimes it’s a week long project, sometimes it’s a life time.
Several years ago we had a doctoral candidate setting up for their defense. Years of research was about to be presented and normally a huge sigh of relief would follow at the end of this process. Not this day. As the candidate started their computer, nothing happend. The candidate rushed for tech support and they said, “no problem, we have plenty of laptops, where’s your back up?” They relied, “On my computer.” It seemed they thought as long as they made two copies of everything that was ok. They didn’t quite understand that having both copies on the same HD was not the same as backing up. Their defense was delayed for several frantic months.
Always have your important stuff backed up on separate drives or media. If it’s really important (a collection of images $$$) I’d put it on a third back up and put it in a bank safe deposit box or another location (friends home). This protects you for fire, flood or theft.
I know a lot of you do understand this and find this boring, but I still see the tears a lot.
jw
-
Permalink Reply by Anne Ruthmann on
-
This is sooooooo important for me that I also try to keep an off-site backup in case some kind of natural disaster happens. I'm also considering getting a fire/water proof safe for my office to keep my on-site backup drives in.
Bizarre tip: if your hard drive seems completely unrecoverable, put it in the freezer for a few hours and then try again. I know at least three people this has worked for!!
Idiot tip: don't put magnets near hard drives. I hired someone to help me who didn't know this and she erased all of the work she had done for me when she put the portable drive in her purse, which had a magnetic closure.
-
Permalink Reply by Adrien Bisson on -
All good suggestions. I tend to use manual methods as opposed to backup software. Being involved with software development in my other life, I don't really trust backup software to be able to retrieve the data when that critical moment comes. Consequently, I copy everything intact. My hangup I guess.
But I think the best policy is diversification. For things that you want to keep forever, especially things that you intend to take off your hard drive (eventually, that's necessary), copy (or backup) to a hard disk, to DVDs and to CDs. CDs seem to be a more robust format. And if possible, copy to a consumer grade optical media and an "archival" grade. No one seems to know how long these things will last. And so some people advise creating duplicates of these optical forms every few years to keep them fresh...
Art Quote of the Day
Edgard Varese
"An artist is never ahead of his time but most people are far behind theirs."
Your Art, Your Life
Post-Election Glow
Posted by Anna Harrison on November 5, 2008 at 9:44am — 2 Comments
ENCAUSTIC - everything old is new again!
Posted by Anna Harrison on October 20, 2008 at 10:57am
Western Avenue Parking Lot Cuteness Quotient Upped Significantly Overnight!
Posted by Anna Harrison on September 10, 2008 at 10:18am — 3 Comments
Live/work condo for rent at Ayer Lofts
Posted by Maureen Chase on September 9, 2008 at 12:41am
Forum
Who are your favorite contemporary artists? 3 Replies
Started by Cindie Kazmer. Last reply by Maxine Oct 30.
Nothing better to do............... 4 Replies
Started by john wren. Last reply by john wren Sep 16.
George Carlin - R.I.P 3 Replies
Started by Maxine. Last reply by Maxine Jul 4.
© 2008 Created by Rex
