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Are Your Important Files 100% Portable?

by Scot Standke
11 replies
Hey Warriors,

My laptop crashed today.

Luckily it's still under warranty, but...

I have to send it in and it could take a week or better to
get back if I'm lucky. And I'm now stuck at my desk in my
office instead of having the luxury or the portability of
my laptop.

I have files on it that I never got around to backing up to
my main PC, a DVD or even a thumb drive and now I don't
have access to them.

How many of your important files do you keep on a thumb
drive or something else that's portable?

Is there a system to simplify this process, somewhere that
let's you have access to any files you need at any time?

Please share your systems here, I know I'll be taking notes
as right now, I feel naked without my laptop and a few
important files LOL

Bottom Line: Always be prepared in cases like this so you
are not caught flat footed like I was.

Scot
#100% #files #important #portable
  • Profile picture of the author colmodwyer
    Hey Scot,

    I write a lot of copy on my Laptop, but use my PC (or will when I get a new one) for everything else right now. So that means once I'm finished with a file on my laptop I then have to save it to an external hard drive, and then save it to my PC to back up and have everything "mirrored" in my work folder (or vice versa).

    What I believe you can do though (and what I'm going to look into, when I get a new PC) is get a wireless server/hard drive. So whether I'm working on my PC or Laptop I'll always be saving to the one place - and that one place will always be accesible by either computer.

    I believe this is possible anyway, so says one of my friends; but it's also meant to be quite risky having your important files and such accessible "wirelessly."

    That's the plan for me anyway, but as I say I've yet to look into - I'm sure if you go down to your local Best Buy or whatever the lads and lassies there will be able to help you out.

    Colm
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  • Profile picture of the author TheDailyBanana
    Originally Posted by Scot Standke View Post

    How many of your important files do you keep on a thumb
    drive or something else that's portable?
    That's a tough situation to go through, sorry to hear about it. Portable USB drives are useful, especially if you don't want to invest a lot of money in external backup hard drives. Pick up 4 or 5 portable USB drives so that you can have backups of your backups. Nothing is worse than losing data on your hard drive, then getting that surge of hope from thinking its safely stored on a USB drive, only to discover the stupid USB drive is screwed up too!
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  • Profile picture of the author eljay003
    I used an external hard drive and online storage to backup my files. If you like to try online storage, I will recommend Xdrive.com and Adrive.com. I learned about Xdrive from a friend of mine and I had tried storing some of my files in her account. Just recently I opened an account with Adrive.com (so I can have my own now). My free account comes with a 50GB online space. I have uploaded some important files the other day
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  • Profile picture of the author Jesus Perez
    Anyone using a laptop:

    Plan for it to either crash or require repairs around the 5 year mark. I've worked extensively in IT and most laptops don't normally make it farther than that. And yes, I'm talking about Mac's as well. Sure you have the occasional "I've had mine for 10 yrs" remark....but from what I've seen in corporate environments, it's not in your favor.

    Laptops are entire computers jammed into a 1.5 inch space. They burn out quickly. Even desktops burn out around the same mark.

    If you do not have a backup plan in place, you will experience the 'stomach falling' feeling the moment you realize your laptop is not bootable.

    Prepare for the worst. This is your livelyhood.

    I personally use Mozy.com to keep 150gb's backed up online. I have family pics, docs, music and even full length HD video stored on Mozy servers.
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    • Profile picture of the author Noah Fleming
      Originally Posted by BlueSquares View Post

      Anyone using a laptop:

      Plan for it to either crash or require repairs around the 5 year mark. I've worked extensively in IT and most laptops don't normally make it farther than that. And yes, I'm talking about Mac's as well. Sure you have the occasional "I've had mine for 10 yrs" remark....but from what I've seen in corporate environments, it's not in your favor.

      Laptops are entire computers jammed into a 1.5 inch space. They burn out quickly. Even desktops burn out around the same mark.

      If you do not have a backup plan in place, you will experience the 'stomach falling' feeling the moment you realize your laptop is not bootable.

      Prepare for the worst. This is your livelyhood.

      I personally use Mozy.com to keep 150gb's backed up online. I have family pics, docs, music and even full length HD video stored on Mozy servers.

      Never heard of Mozy.com. What are the upload speeds like?
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    • Profile picture of the author Kat Bartone
      Hi Scot,

      I'm so sorry to hear about your computer troubles. I've been giving this some thought myself lately, as I haven't been doing any backup of data/downloads/etc.

      I've put some stuff on a thumb drive, but mostly for the convenience of moving back and forth between my laptop and desktop.

      However, I'm thinking about investing in a USB portable drive - prices have come down, storage capacity has gone up, and it just makes good sense.

      I wonder if there's a way that once I've got some data on it, I can plug in and have it sync with either of my computers - thereby doing auto backup of anything new and different. I'm sure there must be some software that would do this...

      Good luck with it,

      - Kat Bartone
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      • Profile picture of the author johntanyishin
        I wonder why they don't focus on building computers that are durable.

        Perhaps they want more sales when your laptops spoil... Just buy a new one, they will advise. lol

        JTYS
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      • Profile picture of the author JamieBing
        Originally Posted by Kat Bartone View Post

        Hi Scot,

        I'm so sorry to hear about your computer troubles. I've been giving this some thought myself lately, as I haven't been doing any backup of data/downloads/etc.


        - Kat Bartone
        It is not a question of IF it happens to you, but WHEN it happens to you. Imagine having to rebuild everything you have worked on!

        Carbonite is only 49 bucks a year... I know there are many others too that are very affordable.
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        Jamie Bing

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  • Profile picture of the author JamieBing
    We now use redundant back up sources. A few years ago we learned the VERY hard way about backing things up. We lost 2 hard drives in as many months. Nothing was backed up. We got raped on data recovery.

    We now have external large hard drives that run backups at night. We also keep many things on smaller 60G external portable drives.

    We also use Carbonite's online back up service that backs up every file we change every day... all day.

    Yes, this is a bit of over kill but after you have suffered a few huge losses that take many months to recover from it can make you look for over kill.
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    Jamie Bing

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  • Profile picture of the author Angela V. Edwards
    My husband and I both have a Free Agent portable drive that we back our files up to. I back up everything, because I have had more than one crash. It's handy because it's a simple USB plug-in. If something on my computer gets accidentally deleted, I have another copy of it; that's handy too.

    My husband recently had his computer crash, but he had backed up all his photos and everything else important to the Free Agent Drive. Backing up your files is super important, IMO.
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  • Profile picture of the author Noah Fleming
    I've been considering putting together a NAS with an old P4 and sticking it in my basement.
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