BACKUPS ...

A forum to share ideas and opinions on the equipment and technical aspects of film, video and AV making.
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Dave Watterson
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Joined: Sun Jan 28, 2007 11:11 pm
Location: Bath, England
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BACKUPS ...

Post by Dave Watterson »

I rarely worry about the little family films and interview movies I make. They routinely get backed up to a separate hard drive and either sent to an online host or burned to DVD/BluRay ...

But a recent disc crash reminded me forcefully about all the other stuff on my computer that should be backed up, but is not ... or at least not often enough.

Trying to recall what documents I drafted for meetings and events then trying to recreate them is painful. What about the address list updated after the flurry of Christmas messages?

Pictures are not a great worry - many are on various cloud services anyway. Emails and website pages can be retrieved online. But in the last couple of days I have had phone calls asking for contact information which is ... er... was on my computer. Or Jan asks when did we last get the boiler serviced and I can ... er could ... easily look it up.

There is a moral here folks .... lots of our stuff is online these days but it is relatively small files that you may miss most.

Dave the dumbo!
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John Roberts
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Joined: Wed Mar 27, 2013 8:42 am
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Re: BACKUPS ...

Post by John Roberts »

Oh, most definitely agree, Dave!

It's the tiny little text files with an access code here or there that are often vitally important. Not everything can be retrieved online though - my email server - that is the little black box of hardware somewhere long forgotten in a dusty cellar - celebrates its 18th birthday this year. And it is 100% true that no-one knows where said black box is or what the access codes to it are, but it keeps on working. The major company has changed hands three times since and I am no longer with them, but still utilise their ancient router for my emails! In a recent conversation with them I was told that whilst ever it works keep using it, but if it blows up then they will simply not replace it - not that they can actually locate it! I have no idea what my password is and the company have no records of it, nor can they figure out how to get it or reset it!

There's a lot to be said for a filing cabinet in a corner with a few select pieces of paper in it!

John :D
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