I tend to live in fear of instant hard drive death. While I don't want my computer stolen (it's happened once before already), I can do things that make theft less likely. I really can't do much about instant hard drive death, and if I plan for my data to live though that, it'll live though most anything.
Thus, I've started using the "offline" files feature to be a handy way of instantly backing up my stuff. I have a server here at work, and I have a computer at home. All my work stuff goes on a folder on a mapped drive, which I've set up to be available "offline", or even if I'm not connected to that network. Same thing goes for personal stuff an the computer at home. Thus, if any of the three hard drives involved dies, I can just copy it off the other drive it's on. Plus, as soon as I connect to a network, it does an intelligent sync of anything that's changed in the mean time.
While I do tend to let things clutter up on my desktop, I don't really let *work* sit there. I'll unzip files and such, download things to there, and yeah, let txt files get strewn about. But, when something takes on importance, I'll move it over to one of the two backed up locations.
Cool to see how you do things though. And remember, your desktop's drive can crash at any moment...
Yes, but I also administer backups as part of my standard workday, so I make sure that it's always backed up :) So while my HDs can blow up at any moment (and I HAVE had that happen to me), all that stuff is also on tape, and on virtual storage space, too.
I'll have to investigate some of that offline sync stuff. Sounds like a good practice.
The off line files thing is a Windows component they introduced in XP, but is much better now in Vista. I don't know of any apps that would do that for Macs or Linux.
Thus, I've started using the "offline" files feature to be a handy way of instantly backing up my stuff. I have a server here at work, and I have a computer at home. All my work stuff goes on a folder on a mapped drive, which I've set up to be available "offline", or even if I'm not connected to that network. Same thing goes for personal stuff an the computer at home. Thus, if any of the three hard drives involved dies, I can just copy it off the other drive it's on. Plus, as soon as I connect to a network, it does an intelligent sync of anything that's changed in the mean time.
While I do tend to let things clutter up on my desktop, I don't really let *work* sit there. I'll unzip files and such, download things to there, and yeah, let txt files get strewn about. But, when something takes on importance, I'll move it over to one of the two backed up locations.
Cool to see how you do things though. And remember, your desktop's drive can crash at any moment...
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So while my HDs can blow up at any moment (and I HAVE had that happen to me), all that stuff is also on tape, and on virtual storage space, too.
I'll have to investigate some of that offline sync stuff. Sounds like a good practice.
Reply
The off line files thing is a Windows component they introduced in XP, but is much better now in Vista. I don't know of any apps that would do that for Macs or Linux.
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