Holy Data Loss!

[toblix]

So, I finally managed to destroy the contents of two of my three disks. These 1250 MiB include things I'd prefer not to lose, such as all my digital photos, all my music, my email and bookmarks, etc.

So I just deleted the pre-existing stuff and added Idle Forums as the second bookmark in Firefox. I have a fucking long way ahead of me.

[elmuerte]

RAID1

[toblix]

Yeah.

[DanJW]

That sucks, batman

[Wrestlevania]

• Flickr
  
• Gmail
  
• Ma.gnolia or Foxmarks (I use both)

I'm not meaning to sound like a pedantic fuck, but if you change your data habits now it'll work out better if this sort of thing happens again.

[Roderick]

I now actually have three clones of the same hard drive. A fire would have to swallow the entire city section before I lose everything. Once bitten!

[Thrik]

It's pretty crazy how we all know how fucking annoyed we'd be if our data were lost, yet so many of us fail to keep a proper backup routine. I'm just as guilty, despite having also suffered a catastrophic data loss several years ago. I know countless other people who're just as stupid, too.

There's nothing like that feeling when it dawns on you that your hard drive isn't working, it's making weird noises, and all that data is completely gone. Just imagine waking up tomorrow and it being as if some cunt had stolen your hard drive overnight.

I should start making use of Vista's backup shit, which does seem really good (and entirely comparable to OS X's Time Machine if you're familiar with that). Using that on at least one additional hard drive is probably a good idea.

Just need a fire-proof external hard drive then, I guess.

[toblix]

• Flickr
  
• Gmail
  
• Ma.gnolia or Foxmarks (I use both)

I'm not meaning to sound like a pedantic fuck, but if you change your data habits now it'll work out better if this sort of thing happens again.

I'd rather not depend on web-based solutions, though. I'll just set up a RAID1 and back up the really important stuff to some secondary location.

[Wrestlevania]

That's fair enough.

I just like the added benefit of being able to access all that stuff independently from my main machine too - even on a mobile, if needs must.

[Nick]

How did you lose the data? I've had HDDs die and managed to retrieve data from them using awesome software of win that I don't have time to look for again right now.

[toblix]

Well, obviously I'm hard at work undeleting what I can. It's an awesomely slow process, though.

[Nachimir]

Sucks Toblix :-(

I lost a few months of email at the end of 2007 and a gig or two of music last month, but it's been years since I've lost a drive.

• Flickr
  
• Gmail
  
• Ma.gnolia or Foxmarks (I use both)

I'm not meaning to sound like a pedantic fuck, but if you change your data habits now it'll work out better if this sort of thing happens again.

I'll second this; my job has switched me on to doing nearly everything online now, and looking after data (like POP mail) seems like a massive ball ache in comparison. Given that my personal stuff is on an Ubuntu machine now, I could easily set up some scripts to back everything up, but online is just easier. Reinstalling machines with any OS has become really simple, whereas before it involved quite a few hours with a long list of software to reinstall and data to shuffle around.

Wrestle, I noticed you had a gripe or two over del.icio.us on Twitter a while back. Care to explain why you choose ma.gnolia/Foxmarks over it? I'm just curious.

[Thrik]

Google Browser Sync is the best for syncing up Firefox instances IMO. It not only handles bookmarks to a bulletproof degree, but can also optionally deal with authentication, cookies, history, and tabs/windows. I use it for staying consistent between my work and home PCs, and hide it from the GUI so I never even know it's there. Ultra-

[toblix]

Actually, I'll probably convert to web-based mail and bookmarks right the fuck now.

[Nappi]

Google Bookmark Sync sounds nice but doesn't seem to support Firefox 3. I'll try Foxmarks then. Hopefully it will have keyword support (love that feature in Firefox 3). Thanks for the tips.

Only a while ago, I started syncing my local calendar with Google Calendar and store some of the files I need often online using Dropbox. The primary reason for that is so that I can access them easier however, not for backup.

Edit: Immediately after replying this appeared in my feed reader. I think I'll give it a try.

[Wrestlevania]

Wrestle, I noticed you had a gripe or two over del.icio.us on Twitter a while back. Care to explain why you choose ma.gnolia/Foxmarks over it? I'm just curious.

Microsoft tried (and are still trying) to buy Yahoo.

But there are other reasons too: Yahoo refuse to launch Delicious v2, even though it's been ready for over a year has a significantly better interface. And, because of this and the above, I switched to Ma.gnolia.

I'm only using Foxmarks to sync the 'utility' bookmarks which I physically keep in my browser; stuff like internal links to company systems (time sheet, blog, project environment, etc.). We get upgrades fairly regularly, so it's just one less thing to worry about when new hardware comes in.

Google Bookmark Sync sounds nice but doesn't seem to support Firefox 3. I'll try Foxmarks then. Hopefully it will have keyword support (love that feature in Firefox 3). Thanks for the tips.

Only a while ago, I started syncing my local calendar with Google Calendar and store some of the files I need often online using Dropbox. The primary reason for that is so that I can access them easier however, not for backup.

Edit: Immediately after replying this appeared in my feed reader. I think I'll give it a try.

I tried Google Browser Sync when it first launched and it botched both machines by somehow munging their history, bookmarks and sensitive data together and making an unusable, unstable mess. Knowing Google, however, I'm sure they've ironed out these and many more problems in the intervening year or so.

Weave definitely looks like it has potential though, even if it does seem a bit alpha at the moment.

All this is cementing my thinking that I'll switch back to Firefox as my main browser now. I've been using it exclusively for development purposes since Safari for Windows became nice and stable. But I'm missing the add-ons and other conveniences from Firefox, even though Safari's font rendering is leagues better than any other browser.