Let me suggest not just suspenders, not just a belt, but both and more to keep those pants up! Multiple backup methods can do a good job of protecting your valuable files: (1) back up your genealogy software, (2) backup your hard drive daily, (3) do intraday backups of your hard drive if possible, and (4) backup your backups once a month.
One of the things I like about RootsMagic 7 (shown above) is that I can open it, open Ancestry, synch all of my trees, and then back up all my RM7 trees with a couple of clicks. So not only is Ancestry always up to date, my RM7 trees are up to date and safe in multiple places. No matter what software you use, please check on how to back up your trees.
For extra safety, I back up my entire hard drive into the cloud once every day, automatically, using Mozy.
Not to mention my hourly Time Machine backups, as a Mac user, also automatic so I just set it and forget it. If something goes wrong during the day, I can return to the version of my file an hour earlier and go from there.
Being super-duper cautious, I have an extra hard drive for once-monthly backup of my backups. Today is that day. I have nearly 20 years' worth of details on my trees. Keeping all those details safe is a high priority.
Are your files safe? Are your backups safe? For peace of mind, consider suspenders and belt backups.
Thanks for the reminder! It's so easy to become complacent about the reliability of computers.
ReplyDeleteLiz, thanks for reading and leaving me a comment. This month's Allen County Public Library "Genealogy Gems" newsletter reminds us that we can send organized documents and collections (and books) to them for scanning and inclusion in their genealogy collection! That's something I'm going to talk with them about.
ReplyDeleteBacking up your data is so important, glad you made this post. A personal anecdote- a couple weeks ago I was in my Computer Science class at school. I keep all my assignments on a single external hard drive (the same hard drive I keep all my scanned photos on- Thousands upon thousands of photos) and every day when I am about to work on an assignment I plug the hard drive in. Except for this time when I plugged it in, it didn't power on. Unplugged again and replugged. I hear a faint whistle and at this point I'm starting to freak out. Usually, when a hard drive is making a whistling noise, it means it's going to fail or it has already failed. I had bought this hard drive less than a year ago. It is drop proof, shock proof, etc. proof.I try to remain calm, tell my dad to get me another hard drive asap. I tried it out several times again throughout the day since all my school work was on it. Finally it worked, and it hasn't stopped working since but you can bet I used the new hard drive my dad bought me last minute to backup.
ReplyDeleteRenee, it's a relief that you got that hard drive to work--and you have a brand-new one as a backup for your backup. Thanks so much for commenting!
ReplyDeleteExcellent advice as always. I never seem to get around to laying out the money for an external hard-drive but I do have Backblaze and Dropbox (primarily for sharing but it is another copy). I'll have to see what Santa can do for me this year.
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