Can't live without it (2)

[ewx]

Comments:

• Four people apparently have exactly one irreplaceable thing. I'm curious what it is l-)
• Quite a few people don't have backups despite having lost data because of it. Perhaps they now have nothing left that's irreplaceable, but apart from that, what are you people thinking?
• Lots of people have lost data because their backups failed; which points out a question I missed, whether people test their backups - untested backups having a nasty little habit of turning out not to work, or not containing the files you thought they did.
• Another arguably missing question was about whether you'd actually be able to replace replaceable things - I couldn't afford to replace my house on my own if it burned down, but it's insured against that. (You can't conveniently test this kind of backup, but you don't hear so many stories of people's home insurance turning out not to work as you do data backups.)

Comments

[mair_in_grenderich]

- I don't/didn't have room to back things up, and some of the things I used to have have disappeared. I've never lost anything like a phd thesis (never had one of those to lose...) but occasional things of some sentimental value. I found an old backup CD a few months ago which was fascinating...

Anyway, once you fail to back things up, lose stuff, and discover your life is going on much the same anyway, the motivation gets less...

[j4.livejournal.com]

Not everything that's irreplaceable is important or worth replacing, and therefore may not be worth the effort of trying to avoid losing it.

e.g. emails if not backed up are probably irreplaceable (unless the sender happens to have kept them in their sent-mail & can find them when asked), but if I lost one, it's unlikely that I'd mind overmuch; if I lost the lot, I'd probably feel bad about it, but in practice it wouldn't really affect me that much.

I probably should back up more things than I do, though.

[pjc50.livejournal.com]

Backups are hard (1). And as other people are pointing out, life goes on. I'd quite like to backup my photos collection, and recent email is quite important, and there's some historical stuff that I'm quite keen on keeping, but lots and lots of my "data" is of low value.

What I'd really like is a backup solution my parents can use.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I think I ticked that because I expected I'd find in retrospect I'd find I'd lost one or two irreplaceable things, though I don't know what.

[aldabra]

I'm thinking: there're lots of more urgent things I should be doing instead and that'll wait until tomorrow, but now I'm tired and I'll do some sudoku before I get on to the urgent stuff.

I think I've lost all electronic version of my th#sis, but I don't care enough to do an extensive search and anyway it sucked and if I was ever going to do anything with it I ought to start again anyway.