How Do You Back Up Your Data?

“I trust my computer” or “I trust my university file system” are both wrong answers. So, how should you back up your data? Friday’s Digest #154

Life Update

Being a surgeon and maintaining a healthy diet don't go well together.

I've been struggling with this since my residency days.

But recently, I finally found a solution!

The challenge was simple:

I don't bring food from home.

I don’t have the energy to prepare meals in advance, and I don't want to carry around a lunchbox.

This meant that during long days in the OR, I found myself eating junk food.

A few months ago, I finally solved this problem.

How?

I bought a mini-fridge for my office.

Now I have healthy food available whenever I need it: yogurt, milk, tahini, hummus, and Coke Zero.

I can easily get fresh bread from anywhere in the hospital.

Why did this mini-fridge solve everything?

Simple— it reduces friction.

I don’t need to remember to prepare food or carry lunch boxes. I just restock it every 2-3 weeks.

Problem solved!

Number 154!

Let's do this.

Tools and Tips

We all know we need to back up our data.

It includes work-related data, but also personal data such as pictures, text messages, and documents.

The problem:

Backing up your data can be a massive headache. So many of us either don't do it at all or do it only partially.

If you don't care about losing your data, that's fine. But if you do, today's newsletter is for you.

We'll discuss three backup methods: cloud, hard drive, and hard copy.

🔵 Cloud Backup

Examples: Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and Apple's iCloud.

Cloud backup is by far the most popular form of backup. However, it's also the riskiest.

It's risky because your data is online and can disappear in an instant. This happened to me— I lost all my data stored on Google Drive.

Google's tech support wasn't able to recover it (and they didn't seem to care much). Fortunately, I had also backed up the data on a removable drive.

My story isn't rare. People lose their cloud data all the time.

My advice:

Use a cloud service that AUTOMATICALLY backs up your data online AND on every computer you connect to it.

How does it work?

You will have a folder on your computer (for example, a folder called “Dropbox”), and everything you save in it will automatically sync to the cloud.

This way, you always have a copy on your hard drive and in the cloud.

And if you connect two computers to the same account, the data constantly syncs between them, giving you THREE copies of each file: one on each computer, and one in the cloud.

Not all cloud services offer this feature.

The service I use is Dropbox. It has NEVER let me down.

iCloud is also reliable.

The other services are not reliable.

🔵 Hard-Drive Backup

Keeping copies on two separate hard drives is the bare minimum.

As I already explained, if you use Dropbox on two computers, you already have copies on two separate drives.

But if you don't, you need a removable hard drive.

There are two types of removable hard drives:

The bigger, older, and cheaper traditional hard drives and the newer, smaller, and more expensive SSD drives.

Traditional drives have moving parts inside, and can be easily damaged.

Don’t use an old-style hard drive.

SSD drives are much more durable and faster (you don't want your backup to take forever).

I use a Samsung T7 SSD drive.

🔵 Hard Copy Backup

The last method is highly reliable and the most straightforward of all.

Print your data.

You can print your documents and create a booklet.

Print your pictures and make an album.

Print your manuscripts and hang them in your office.

The sky is the limit.

I'm not suggesting you print everything on your computer.

But by printing your most important data, you achieve two goals: you won't lose it if it's deleted from your computer, and you can enjoy browsing through it while relaxing on the couch.

Nothing beats real paper.

Epilogue

If you received this newsletter from a friend and would like to join Friday's Digest, visit https://newsletter.shaysharon.com​

That’s it for this issue.

See you next week!

Shay

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