PhotoDonkey
TPF Noob!
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- May 20, 2008
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You offer some pretty sound advice when it comes to the downsides of Laptops, but I would add this:
Anyone not following some type of backup schedule for their data absolutely deserves to lose it all. With all the different solutions on the market today (writable DVDs, External Hard Drives, etc.) there is no excuse whatsoever to NOT have your data backed up on some format. At an absolute minimum you should have a second physical hard drive in your PC to back your files up to. If the primary hard drive fails, the other would have the data already on it. All you'd have to do is replace the primary hard drive, install your OS and software, and copy the files from the back-up drive to the new primary drive. Hard drives are dirt cheap these days, compared to what it's going to cost you to have that data recovered.
Myself, I have multiple PCs at home with multiple hard drives in each. I back up ALL of my files to both of the PCs and periodically back that data up to writable DVDs. Sometime in the next year, I plan to purchase an external hard drive to make this easier.
If it's at all possible, you should also keep back-ups of your data at a separate physical location than your PCs as well, in the event of a fire or other disaster.
Anyone not following some type of backup schedule for their data absolutely deserves to lose it all. With all the different solutions on the market today (writable DVDs, External Hard Drives, etc.) there is no excuse whatsoever to NOT have your data backed up on some format. At an absolute minimum you should have a second physical hard drive in your PC to back your files up to. If the primary hard drive fails, the other would have the data already on it. All you'd have to do is replace the primary hard drive, install your OS and software, and copy the files from the back-up drive to the new primary drive. Hard drives are dirt cheap these days, compared to what it's going to cost you to have that data recovered.
Myself, I have multiple PCs at home with multiple hard drives in each. I back up ALL of my files to both of the PCs and periodically back that data up to writable DVDs. Sometime in the next year, I plan to purchase an external hard drive to make this easier.
If it's at all possible, you should also keep back-ups of your data at a separate physical location than your PCs as well, in the event of a fire or other disaster.