A funny story about backups. Not “ha ha” funny, but not heart breaking agony, either.

Sometimes I make backups onto CD-ROM or DVD media, but usually I just copy stuff over to a honking big external hard disk.

Actually, I use the disk for both system backups and archival storage. So last week after I ran the backup script, I copied over the past few months of digital photographs, some music that I'd ripped recently, and a few other things. Then I deleted them to free up space for new photographs and music.

I'd done this many times, but on this occasion a realization crept over me with the quiet subtlety of Vogon poetry. You see the error, don't you? If not, go back and read that paragraph again. Especially the part where I said “I deleted them”.

Uhm…it's not really a backup if you only have one copy, is it?

Needless to say, I set out to fix this problem as soon as possible. With Prsidents' Day sales and rebates, I got another 200Gb for less than $40.

[Photo]
[Flickr]

Backup backup

I only have one USB 2.0 enclosure at the moment, so making the backups is a bit of a three-disk shuffle just now, but I'll fix that soon.

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