Breathless as my computer crashed...did I lose my data?
I wished I had…
Only a moment had gone by. Just one moment since my computer screen displayed the dreaded "blue screen of death"…and I had a sinking feeling that this time my computer may not restart "as normal".
The first thoughts to flash through my mind were "geez, what if it does not restart?" What about all the data (documents, spread sheets, tax forms and more) that I had saved in the past several months… were they GONE?
I whispered a brief prayer and re-booted my PC. THIS TIME it did restart! Yay! So, I started (immediately) to research ways to protect and backup my (most valuable) data. I learned that for just a few bucks, I could purchase a "flash drive" at the local office store and it would have enough space (gigabytes) to backup all of my files. But – what if I forgot to do that regularly? AND – what if I lost the darn thing? (It's only the size of my thumb!) So, I moved on to look at other solutions.
So…off to Amazon to research external hard drives. 500gb? 1 tb? Pricing not bad! But… then I realized that having a hard drive in the SAME PLACE as my computer was also a bit problematic. First, the backup would NOT be automatic… I really NEED that! (I don't want to have "one more chore" to concern myself with!) And, IF disaster strikes, you know, a flood, fire, theft, etc. – it is very possible that the external hard drive will be gone along with the laptop. Hmmm… what to do, what to do?!
Then I looked to the "cloud" – you know, in 20th century terms for us dinosaurs, the cloud was a white puffy thing in the sky. The "cloud" in this case refers to "offsite backup". How? Well, as a techie would say, through the "cloud" or "Ethernet". In english? Transferring my files (securely) via a connection to a remote computer (server) that I rent my own secure space from!
Cloudzow, Carbonite, Idrive, Apple all provide this service. These companies have purchased "servers" (computers with hard drive space) that you can "rent" a portion of – a secured, password protected portion!
You know how you can rent space at a storage facility for your "stuff"? Well, you can do the same for your data! And…with the right service, unlike the physical storage companies, your storage (or backup) of your data is unlimited.
Want to know which service I selected and why? Visit the link in my signature file below.
Only a moment had gone by. Just one moment since my computer screen displayed the dreaded "blue screen of death"…and I had a sinking feeling that this time my computer may not restart "as normal".
The first thoughts to flash through my mind were "geez, what if it does not restart?" What about all the data (documents, spread sheets, tax forms and more) that I had saved in the past several months… were they GONE?
I whispered a brief prayer and re-booted my PC. THIS TIME it did restart! Yay! So, I started (immediately) to research ways to protect and backup my (most valuable) data. I learned that for just a few bucks, I could purchase a "flash drive" at the local office store and it would have enough space (gigabytes) to backup all of my files. But – what if I forgot to do that regularly? AND – what if I lost the darn thing? (It's only the size of my thumb!) So, I moved on to look at other solutions.
So…off to Amazon to research external hard drives. 500gb? 1 tb? Pricing not bad! But… then I realized that having a hard drive in the SAME PLACE as my computer was also a bit problematic. First, the backup would NOT be automatic… I really NEED that! (I don't want to have "one more chore" to concern myself with!) And, IF disaster strikes, you know, a flood, fire, theft, etc. – it is very possible that the external hard drive will be gone along with the laptop. Hmmm… what to do, what to do?!
Then I looked to the "cloud" – you know, in 20th century terms for us dinosaurs, the cloud was a white puffy thing in the sky. The "cloud" in this case refers to "offsite backup". How? Well, as a techie would say, through the "cloud" or "Ethernet". In english? Transferring my files (securely) via a connection to a remote computer (server) that I rent my own secure space from!
Cloudzow, Carbonite, Idrive, Apple all provide this service. These companies have purchased "servers" (computers with hard drive space) that you can "rent" a portion of – a secured, password protected portion!
You know how you can rent space at a storage facility for your "stuff"? Well, you can do the same for your data! And…with the right service, unlike the physical storage companies, your storage (or backup) of your data is unlimited.
Want to know which service I selected and why? Visit the link in my signature file below.
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