Hard Drives. Hard Lessons: Back it Up!
You’ve heard it for years. From big booty shakers to Silicon Valley makers: Back it up! It’s so true. Believe me, I just went through a nightmare. What happened you ask? Oh, nothing much, I just had a small panic attack after losing all of the notes I have been taking for years in my Notes App on my iPhone. Take heed and learn from me the dangers of not backing it up.
It was a casual evening one Sunday night. I was sitting in my favorite chair, my dog beside me and my youngest cat on my lap as we watched some blather on Netflix. My phone buzzed and alerted me of a Snapchat from a dear friend of mine. It made me chuckle, so I decided to take a video myself of my cat and dog being cute on me when low and behold my iPhone said to me, “Oh no my friend, you are running out of storage.” To which I reacted cooly, Easy I thought, I’ll just delete some old photos and videos and apps I haven’t used in a while. I went into my photos and deleted said photos and videos and then went into my iPhone storage and proceeded to look into apps I really haven’t used in a long jolly while and deleted them. Then I came across a file folder I had never seen before title, “On My Phone”. I went into said file and clicked through until I stopped and said to myself, without opening these files, “What the heck is this nonsense? Deleee-eeeete!” I made my video to send to my friend via Snapchat and thought nothing of it the rest of the night.
The following day I was at work and in the middle of doing a social media post for the business as I am one to do for them. As I was finishing up the editing of the video I went to open my Notes app where I like to keep the formatting I do for my posting. Not that I can’t figure out how I like to do it each time I go to post, it just makes it a lot faster if I have a template set up already. Call it a shortcut. So I opened up my notes and to my great displeasure I found that ALL of my precious notes from the many years of my iPhone-life were gone! Gone, I say! Like hair plucked from your nose in its prime! Gone like so many summer days of your youth. The panic attack immediately set in. Where were they? Can I get them back? Why am I such a fool? A fool with a beautiful beard. A damn, slapstick, donkey-brained dipstick of a fool! I planned on Googling in a second but first I made a panicked Facebook status like I have seen my grandmother make so many times before in her mistrust and misguided attempts at understanding any kind of technology including microwaves and stairwells.
Then I Googled like a machine! I was Neo looking for the Architect. But little truth did I find. I found stupid unhelpful forums on Apple from people who have had similar problems. But there was no help or solace for me. God forsake someone on the interwebs could be helpful! Heck maybe they were but I was so distraught I couldn’t see through my blind rage. I instead decided to privately sulk all day in my sorrows, resting on my laurels. Side question: What is a laurel? I mean, it sounds funny to say but seriously, what is it? Anyway. That night, I went home and well to tell you the truth did nothing about it till the next morning. The next morning!
I went on my computer and downloaded iCloud onto it and miraculously remembered my password. Huzzah! I was in. I looked for the Notes app and went into it. I looked at the Recently Deleted notes and I found…nothing. Nothing! As it turns out, I did not have those precious notes attached to iCloud. I was just saving them directly on the physical device in my hand. So I was shit out of luck like a sailor in shark-and-kracken-infested waters. This was a hard lesson to learn. One I will never ever, ever forget. Not even if there’s a fire! I shall remember this moment in my life. Luckily, for the most part, I have a photographic memory and am able to recall most of the more important notes that were on there and what was in them. Thank goodness. Thank goodness for my wonderful brain and its capacity to keep things in it that are about me. So yeah, always back up everything onto multiple places and spaces in time. If it’s on paper, put it in the computer, then onto a USB, then onto an external hard drive, then onto a digital memory cloud service and then finally into the very DNA of your next CHILD. You get what I’m saying. Save your shit. Multiple times, multiple places.
Here’s a few places I suggest:
