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Why bother backing up?

There are many reasons to back up your files on a regular basis. Accidents happen, things get lost, data gets corrupted, and sometimes bad people steal things. If you think that these things will never happen to you, think again.

Here are a few scenarios to consider:

1. You accidentally deleted a folder needed for your project.
2. You had to reformat your drive due to corruption or problems with the operating system.
3. Hard drive failure!
4. Corruption of the directory of hard drive contents (this is the list of files and where they are physically located on the hard drive).
5. I lost my thumb drive/CD/DVD/zip!!!!!
6. Other failure of your machine, resulting in needing to send it out for repair.
7. Theft

Solutions:

With a current backup, you don't need to worry (as much). You have the flexibility to either replace a failed hard drive, wipe the current drive and start fresh, or grab a copy of that file you accidentally deleted. You can also recover from data loss or theft a little easier. Having a laptop or drive stolen is traumatic enough without losing the only copy of your data at the same time.

Without a backup:

1 - 3: Spend hours attempting to recover the files, and probably not recovering exactly what you need, or your company IT person gets stuck trying to recover your data, during which time the machine cannot be used at all, and the IT person is unavailable to help others. In the case of a hard drive failure, your data is gone. A data recovery company might be able to recover the data, but be prepared to spend quite a lot of money to do so (this can run in the thousands of dollars).

4. Maybe gone, maybe not. A drive utility might be able to fix it. Might. If a utility cannot repair the problem, the data is gone.

5. Gone. Did I say "gone"? Yep, gone. Chances are that you probably did not have your name on the item. I know, because we have tons of CDs without any labels at all in the lost and found at the end of every semester.

6. When you send a computer in for repair to the computer manufacturer, the first thing the techs do is reset the drive back to factory condition. Yep, they reformat and reinstall, and your data is not saved. Your data is gone, and overwritten, and cannot be recovered.

7. In the case of theft, kiss your data goodbye, along with your computer. This is also why it is not a good idea to keep your backups in your laptop bag.

If you are REALLY unfortunate, and lose data in the real world (aka, not school), you will cost your company missed deadlines and extra $$$. A failed hard drive might be sent to Drive Savers for file recovery, which can cost thousands of dollars. If you use one of the commercial software packages to recover data (usually after accidental deletion or reformatting), you have to sort through thousands of files to find the ones you need. Every file may need to be opened to be identified as file names are sometimes lost. This means that when you finally find those InDesign files, you have to find, identify, and rename the linked files. Trust me, this is not something you want to do. File recovery is not quick, and not painless. It is far better to have a current backup.

You alone are responsible for your data and backups. In some organizations, backups are automatic, but depending on when the last backup was made, you could still end up losing a lot of work. Every company is different. It's a good idea to ask how backups are handled from day one. If you are responsible for your own backups, you could end up fired for not keeping your backups current if there is a problem that results in data loss. It’s a good idea to know exact policies and procedures regarding backups.

The moral of the story is: A good, up-to-date backup can save lots of time, headaches, and heartaches in a multitude of situations. A good backup will allow you to get back to work fairly quickly. Being able to say, "Yes, I have a backup," will make your IT person’s day . :)