refreshing digital storage media
you turn on your computer and it will NOT boot up. why? your hard disk broke.
why? because ALL HARD DISKS BREAK EVENTUALLY.
so, you go to your backup hard disk (HDD = Hard Disk Drive), restore your data and go to your local store to get a brand-new HDD. u format it, load yr data from backup: bingo, you've refreshed yr HDD. now u have a few more years before the new one dies. which it WILL.
and so will yr backup drive. also, that CD u burned 8 years ago with those essential pictures? try putting it in NOW, if it still works, copy the files onto the new HDD. and make sure you've copied them onto your backup drive as well. because yes, home-burned CDs/DVDs go bad also (the ultimate FAQ to burning optical discs is at: http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/media/index.htm). you backed those files up, right?
for nonessential files, a single backup is fine. my irreplaceable files are backed up 3-4 times locally plus (encrypted) offsite. offsite backups used to be difficult, nowadays, just check out mozy.com, there are many similar providers.
JtB | |
