"The Data Disaster Horror Story Thread" A good reason to keep multiple back ups.

A friend just gave me an external USB HDD he wasn't using, a Buffalo HD with a 250GB Sata disc in it.

I thought I had better plug it in and test it before I can put a 500GB drive in it for another external back up.

I'm glad I tested it first, as it made a loud pop and let all the magic smoke out when I turned it on.

Had I been using it as my only photo storage drive, there is a high chance I would have just lost everything.

Fortunatly I lost nothing, but.....

My Girlfriend took a road trip across country,.

She took hundreds of photos with her Digital Rebel...
She's not a computer person, she's an "always had a Mac which does it all for me" user, and she stored all those images only on the external HD.
These images were the most important ones she has ever taken.
this was all before she met me, so I was not able to prevent what took place next.

....they were all lost after the external died.

Yep, multiple levels of back up, and putting things on an external is not back up.


P.S. maybe we should change this to
"The Data Disaster Horror Story Thread"

...and refer to it as a warning to all...

I do the opposite. I never take any shots that are important enough to warrant saving...

So , not a "back up" but a "back down " method...

Pre-emptive damage limitation, yes...

If you run a business make sure you have a back up strategy, not just data but a second workstation. If your workstation goes down can you manage say 2-3 days to get it back up working? Also how would you sync the machines data.

This is why I use network storage, makes life so much 'easier'. Shame I'm down a workstation...

That's why it's also good to have things like Smugmug's SmugVault, or Mozy file storage. But I like Pete's strategy...

Must be my month for things to go wrong.

I just opened lightroom, played around with some random images, then deleted them.
Had a look back at the folders tab and saw one was bright red, indicating LR could no longer find it on the disk.

A quick search and sure enough it was gone, I think I accidently deleted it when I removed the random photo edits, and because it was done with LR it did not go to the recycle bin.

Fortunatly I have an internal back up, never had to use it before, but I simply opened the drive and copied the folder back to the main disk.
A quick and easy fix to a stupid and easy mistake