Brooke
R. Busse, over on her blog, tells the alarming story of what happened when her
computer got fried and would not start up again.
Offsite
storage is the key. For my backup
system, I use two thumb drives. (I tend
to call them jump drives, which shows how much Battlestar Galactica I watched.)
At least one is always offsite.
When I’ve done an evening’s worth of writing, I back that up onto one of
the drives. The next day, I exchange it
with the one that’s been stored offsite.
Of
course, that means I have to keep track of which files from the previous day to
rewrite on the drive I’ve just brought back, in addition to any more work I
do. It becomes a habit, and so not
arduous.
I’ll
have to look into online backups, also.
That's so true. I just lost my Macbook to a cup of jumping coffee. I kid you not. Someone slammed the door and the vibrations made my coffee cup jump off the table into to my lap. Thank goodness I had an external harddrive backup. I would be devastated if I hadn't had my manuscripts saved...
ReplyDeleteI've lost stuff before and it can be heartbreaking. On my last b-day, my hubby bought me a back-up drive--it fits EVERYTHING on my computer, from documents to photos I've uploaded. I just plug it in after doing work and it updates itself. I also email docs to myself all the time. Pretty paranoid for someone who's never actually published a novel, I know :)
ReplyDeleteOkay, both of you have more sophisticated backups than I do. But someday, I'll back this stuff up into a titanium plate in the back of my head. Then you'll say, "Oh, you're still using titanium? We have the carbon fiber backups in our pinkie fingers."
ReplyDeleteI make a backup after every writing "session". A "session" can end when I take a break to eat lunch, which means I sometimes back up several times in a day! Ever since my motherboard spontaneously freaked out a little while in the middle of my typing a sentence, I try to click "Save" and back up stuff as much as possible!
ReplyDelete