Now I know that external hard drives can also crash so the next thing I do is an online backup of my external hard drive. I chose to use Mozy because it is only $4.95 a month and they have unlimited space you can use. They will also send you disks of all of your files if your computer ever crashes.
I have been really happy with Mozy so far. I have been using them for about 4 months now. I usually just backup my hard drive every night when I go to bed and it is done by morning. It usually only takes a few hours depending on how much new stuff I have to back up. The initial backup did take about a week because I had A LOT of stuff but after that the backups have been really quick. The last thing I do is make DVD's of all of my pictures. I haven't been the best at this but a couple of times each year I put all of my new pictures on DVD's and put them in a safe spot. Another thing my mom does is she has a copy of all of her pictures at my house as well. She gave me a little box and it has jump drives with all of her pictures on them. She then gives me more with new pictures a few times each year. This way if there is ever a fire or some other disaster at my mom's house there is also a copy at my house so she doesn't lose anything.
Now it's probably not necessary to do all of these things but I'd rather be safe then sorry. I would just be devastated if I lost all of my pictures and the memories that go with them.
How do you make sure you don't lose all of your pictures and scrapbook layouts? I'd love to hear from you.
Did you use this on a laptop or a desktop? It says that it is a Desktop External Hard Drive but I was wondering if it could be used on a laptop?!
ReplyDeleteI use it on my laptop. It just plugs into a USB port and then you have to plug the cord into the wall for the power supply. It says desktop but you can use it for a laptop. The laptop external hard drives don't have a power cord they just use the power supply from the computer. The laptop or portable external hard drives are a little more expensive so I went with the desktop kind since I don't mind having to plug it into the wall.
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to make sure that it would work with a laptop before I purchased it! Thanks for the info on such a great deal :)
ReplyDeleteI finally have an external hard drive and plan on signing up with Mozy because I lost 3 years of pictures and digilayouts earlier this year because my computer went crazy on me. It made me incredibly sad and I don't want that to happen again. Thankfully I have faithfully kept up my blog so pretty much everything is on there still.Lesson learned for sure.
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting this. I read it when you first posted it and now that I actually have the extra money, without feeling as guilty, I'm buying one tomorrow. It's nice to finally know that I can use a desktop one with my laptop and not have to pay the $129+ for a 1TB for a laptop external hard drive. I don't feel the least bit guilty about buying one since I can go the cheaper route.
ReplyDeleteLindi
Lindi, I was so happy when I found out I could use the desktop external hard drive on my laptop because of the price as well. Glad I could help out and enjoy your external hard drive when you get it. I love mine and let me know what you think of it.
ReplyDelete