Some Tips on How to Avoid Technological Disasters

I missed my weekly posting goal last week, so the following is the first of two posts this week. Note how honestly I’m approaching this situation – you should also know that it may or may not have been (extremely) painful for me to write this.

Some tips on how to avoid Technological Disasters, which I’m afraid are no less psychologically distressing than natural/physical ones.

1. Put backups on USBs, discs, hard-drives, SD cards, etc.
2. Make backups of everything. (PC, smartphone, tablet, MP3 player, etc.).
3. And then make backups of those backups.
4. Update your backups in a timely and consistent manner (meaning, you should do it every day, week, month, or year, depending on how often you edit/change those files, as well as how much progress you’re willing to randomly loose).
5. Just because your files are on a cloud drive, doesn’t mean you cannot loose them, and therefore you should make backups of those files as well.
6. Physical copies are always nice, until they’re not (as in, when you are running out of square feet to put those physical boxes of paper).
7. Realize that electronics are considered “old” at three years, and rather ancient at five. (Translation: this means that the possibility that something will break or ___ becomes significantly more likely as time passes by each day, so therefore you should do the items above.)
8. If you rely on a backup software to make a copy of everything for you on a reoccurring schedule, make sure that the software gives you a size of your backup, and keep an eye on how much empty space you have left, because if you don’t, certain files may overwrite other files in the process without your knowledge or approval because repeated backups can be HUGE. (This is because the software has been making backups of your backups, so before you know it, everything is 400%+ the size it used to be, which speeds up how long it takes before your device runs out of room, thus in turn speeding up your appointment with technological disaster.)
9. If you create or download HQ video files, it is best to keep those on a separate drive, because it is unnecessary to backup those types of files on a reoccurring basis since they’re not changed (unless you are a video-creator or editor).
10. If you’re unsure your backup is complete or uncorrupted, find an older one that you know was done before Bad Things Happened, and name it “Stable Backup insert date.” Do not delete this stable version (for years, if necessary), because you never know when you may find that something is missing from the more recent backup that you’ve used to restore your files.
11. Regularly check how full your drive is. And make room or get a new one if needed. (Empty out the trash, delete really old backups, etc.)

Questions, thoughts, comments on my tips? Anything you would add? Let me know in the comments below. 😉