Your vast electronic library... is it safe?
So you collect e-books, do you? And maybe you have a big collection of music, video, pictures and audio books also. How confident are you that your precious collection is safe?
It's the sort of topic we don't like to think about and so we tend to stick our head in the sand and hope for the best. So let me shake up your world a little bit. Believe it or not, there are a lot of ways you can easily lose that content. Here are a few to be aware of...
* Hardware failure - This is the most obvious danger. Your disk drive crashes and poof, you lost your precious files. And disk drives do fail. You had better make sure your important data is also stored somewhere else. Even the recent stuff, if it's important.
But if all else fails, and you can't afford a data recovery service, try the little known trick of putting the hard drive in your freezer for a bit to aid in the rescue. A quick web search should give you the details.
* User failure - This one is also a danger, but people tend to lose sight of how easily you could lose your data due to your own stupidity. We all do stupid things when we are in a hurry or distracted! Suppose you decide to make a clean backup, for example, and wipe out the backup copy to make room for the new backup. Murphy's Law says that it's probably time for the original data drive to fail! Or what if you push your changes the wrong direction and now both of your drives look like an old and incomplete backup copy? Have you tested your backup process to make sure it works? You know what they say - an untested backup isn't a backup at all.
* Media failure - I'm safe, you say, because I've backed everything up on optical media, like homemade DVDs or CDs. Not so fast! It turns out that the optical media you used is not so permanent. In fact, if you marked it with a permanent marker, it could already be degrading. I've found out first hand that my optical copies of files are in jeopardy, but was lucky enough to discover it in time to buy a new drive that was better at reading the fading media. Bottom line, don't assume home made DVDs and CDs are long lasting.
I'm not sure how long SD cards and boxed up hard drives last, but depending on the temperature conditions, it might not be as long as we would hope.
* Site loss - That's only something that IT shops in big corporations worry about, you say. But, suppose you have your backups on hard drives, and they are plugged in with your main computer. Now suppose there is a lightening strike or a fire or a flood. Not only did you lose your primary files, but you lost your backup files. Ouch!
Depending on how much data you have, there might be a pretty reasonable Internet backup service out there that can protect you, but if you a really dedicated collector with multiple terabytes, it probably isn't a great alternative. Fortunately, that's not really an issue for most e-book collectors because the files are so much smaller than audio or video.
* Technology Shift - Are you sure that you will still be able to use your backup files in the future? If you stored it on tape, you need a compatible tape drive and driver/library software. If you have it in unusual formats, such as a compressed disk image using your favorite backup software, will you still be able to use it in 20yrs? What about when Vista replacement comes down the road forcing a complete and incompatible rewrite of software you have been depending on, and none of the file handling software exists anymore?
Or maybe you have your content in the next latest greatest format. But it flops and in 10 years no software can use it or convert it. Do you really want to convert your whole library, and have to find an ancient system on eBay to use for the job? It's a good idea to stick with standard and generic formats wherever possible.
* Business Shift - Are you depending on your online e-bookstore to be your backup source of purchased e-books? This is probably a pretty good backup, except when your book seller goes out of business, or their whole business direction changes and it's not worth their while to keep your library for you anymore.
I'm sure our readers could provide stories along these lines, or even entirely novel ways of losing important files. So I'm curious what people are doing for small and large libraries of content or other important documents like insurance papers, financial records or medical documents. It's tempting to put many of those things in electronic form if you have a scanner, but you have to think about how safe you feel about it being as permanent as a box or file cabinet with paper.
The good news is that these dangers don't usually hit. The bad news is that they do happen.
So is anyone out there feeling completely comfortable with the safety of their important data? How far do you go to protect it? Or are you feeling vulnerable because you haven't worked out exactly how to do your backups? What's acceptable risk? Maybe you even wish you hadn't spent so much time collecting those files, after you realized all the care taking and protection they require?
Let us know in this survey how you feel about the safety of your content!
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