Big Drives Don't Bounce

Over the last few months we have seen an increasing number of external hard drive failures. Some due to gravity, others due to drive or component failure.

Of course everyone backs up their data, photos, music collection, business data, accounts etc. But when was the last time that you checked the backups to see if the data is where it is supposed to be, that it is all there nice and safe, available and up to date.

We recently found that a well-used and much loved program was changing the way it saved data, causing nightmares when the C drive failed. Eventually most data was recovered, but it took an awful lot of work.

I am coming to the conclusion that it is safer to have at least two external hard drives, alternating between them, one attached to the computer, the other in a fire safe or off site. It is easy to replace the computer. Data, another matter entirely.

It is a well-known fact that business who loses their computers by theft, fire or mechanical failure (esp. hard drive failure), are often likely to have ceased trading within 90 days if they do not have proper backup and recovery in place. It takes up enough time as it is to enter the data in the first place, without having to re-input several years worth of database, accounts, etc. Let alone all those emails with orders that you no longer have access too.

Hard drives like most things IT, do not last forever. On average between three and four years. But if the data is important I would be inclined to change them a bit more often than that. Data recovery can be a very expensive business.