backup your backups

I’ve had two five-terabyte drives for several years now. I’ve used one as the main backup and media server for the house. Pictures, movies, backups of current and ancient drives from long ago, everything went onto this drive. The second one has been sitting, unused, for years now, as it was always a little too much effort to hook it up and backup the data from the first. However, I recently snagged a solid router with two USB share points available, and so I set both drives up on it. One had gobs of data, the other, about one-third of the earlier stuff.

I should probably do the damn backup this weekend. That’s been the mantra for four weekends straight. But always, something else to do.

Yeah, I know. Predictable.

Note that my god is not a vengeful god or a jealous god. Neither would I count him as overly kind, compassionate, or loving. My god is a literary god. And that means that he kills shit off exactly when its purpose has been fulfilled or when irony or humor level attains maximum value.

Yeah. The main hard drive failed. Pictures, videos, backups, gone. Bits carved into an ethereal residue on a hard drive platter. Whatever function that info served in the universe is apparently complete.

I’m reluctant to draw any further conclusions at the moment. I’m not done with the problem, of course; there are data retrieval shops out there, and I’ve heard tell of some powerful mojo in their arsenals. We’ll see.

But anyway, here we are again, with a life lesson that I have to keep relearning multiple times. BACK UP YOUR STUFF, AND BACK UP THE BACKUPS. MULTIPLE DRIVES. MULTIPLE LOCALES. The info you save may be your own.