Another reason why you should always have your data in more than one place...

http://www.myfoxla.com/dpp/news/inve...Scams_20090727

You just can't trust anyone, anymore!

You can never be too careful. I remember back in '96, I took my personal computer back to the vendor to correct minor issues and they reformatted my HDD without permission. I learned the hard way to back up everything going forward.

The only time I thought I lost everything was years ago when I was 19 or 20 yrs old. I remember how stressed I was over the data, but luckily the support technicians managed to save the hard drive (under warranty). Since then I was lucky and always backed up my data on an external hard drive at least once a month.

I do use SugarSync now, paying $5 per month for real-time data protection. It gives me 30 GB of space to play with, and I only use about half of it. Worth the price, especially if my computer freaks out on me right this moment - it would be as easy as a simple download to get all my files back in the shape they were last left in.

Just signed up for SugarSync! That's a very good price for 30GB of storage. This will be my 3rd backup source for my personal files. Can't be too careful now.

Yeah, they look interesting - thanks for the link to them Artashes. Will have to test them out and see how they do. A buddy of mine runs a backup company so I have data stored there too (one way encrypted - if I forget the password, all files are lost). I like that extra security, how hopefully SugarSync offers something similar.

I've been using Mozy to back up 34GB of my data currently (photos and docs mostly).

They provide unlimited backup for almost the same price. (I've yet to test retrieving their backups though, none of my HDs have ever crashed yet!)

So you have not yet tested to see if your backups are even working then?

I strongly advise that you at least pull SOME files back to verify that they are being backed up correctly. The last thing you'll want on your hands is that you've been making diligent backups and no way to retrieve the data (or corrupted data).

Good advice.

So last night I "accidentally" deleted some of my photos and tried to retrieve the backup. While a little slow, I got my photos back intact.

So I hope the remaining 34GBs are still safe in their hands.

Just backup your data onto DVDs or external HD frequently and you should be fine... not to mention there are softwares like Undelete that you can run to recover data loss if any. One precaution to take though, if you accidentally delete or lose any data, try not to run any activity on that disk else you risk the priviledge of regaining the files.

Ya its like 39% of all desktop hard drives fail within 5 years. Crazy