Backup worries

[image error]It’s the first Wednesday of the month again, time for a post for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group.

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A month ago, my old computer broke. It was still working, kind of, but so sluggishly and reluctantly, I knew it was dying. In a panic, lest I lose all my files, I frantically started to do backup.

Before that point, I had told myself multiple times that I needed to backup my hard drive, do it regularly, do it often, but I kept procrastinating for some reason. On the day I realized my computer was busted and I needed a new one, I hadn’t done any backup for over a year.

Ouch! It was a terrible realization. And my backup proceeded so slowly, it took me 3 days to backup half the files. Imagine my frustration and anxiety during those days. My stomach was tied in knots. I couldn’t think of losing so much: all my fiction, my newspaper articles for a dozen years, and all my images – my classic art collection, lots of photographs from several free image sites, and my book covers.

I bought a new computer, of course. Fortunately, the techs at the store were able to transfer all my files to the new computer. I was giddy with relief.

Now, I made a resolution to backup all my files to flash drives often, so I won’t be in such a dire situation again. But I’m thinking that maybe I should have a second backup medium. Maybe an external hard drive or an online depository. I looked into one online cloud possibility, but it only offered a limited amount of storage for free, 1G or some such, and my art folder alone is almost 40G.

What do you know about backup options, preferably free? Any opinions? Personal experiences? What is good? What isn’t? Tell me in the comments.

 

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