The other day while at Best Buy, taking a long hard look at the iPad (whimper), I over heard a person asking an employee how big the hard drive is and how stable it is against crashes. I could help myself but listen in to see what the employee would say and the story the woman gave about how her last hard drive crashes and she nearly lost everything and had to pay hundreds of dollars for data recovery on top of paying for a new hard drive. Apparently this employee wasn't one of the good ones and told her what she wanted to hear about the latest tech and how far hard drives have come in the last few years. At the moment I thought to myself what an idiot and he's just trying to hurry the sale along cause he's unsure about is answer.
After all was said and done, I went over and introduced myself to the woman and stated that I over heard her conversation and thought that I could help. I told her that I was a photographer and how storage and memory and keeping it safe was always a problem. What I explained to her was that no matter how far we come with our tech everything is bound to break. Even the new solid state hard drives with no moving parts has a better chance of not crashing, but still can be attacked by viruses and maleware in general. So, I told her how I handle this situation and see if it might be be for her. Here's what I said.
First, the size of your hard drive doesn't matter. What matters is how you use that space. Think of how you will use the computer, i.e. home, business or both. Also consider how many people will be using it. These things will let you know what types of programs you will install and how much space you will really need. Keep in mind you should have plenty of space on your hard drive for breathing room. A 500G hard drive will almost always be more than enough. That's what I have on my iMac and I've not even used a fraction of that with all the graphic and photo editing software I have installed.
Now, you're probably wondering where are you going to put your photos, documents, music, etc. Well, that's why external and portable hard drives and jump (or flash) drives were made. This will give you a safer way to keep those cherished memories away from crashes and prying eyes on the net. Since I use my iMac for both home and business use, I have two external drives, one portable, and a slue of jump drives. Not to mention I keep DVD backups of almost everything. Now I'm not saying you need this much storage, usually one external of either 500G or 1T will suffice for any household. Plus, adding about 3 or 4 jump drives ranging from 8G to 32G will give you flexibility. This setup will run you approximately $200 to $400 depending on what you get. It's a lot better than paying upwards around $500 to $1,000 for data recovery and not being assured you will get everything back, or even using an off site web storage service with a monthly fee.
Well, I hoped this helped will some of the issues we all have when it comes to data storage and keeping our files, music and memories safe. I know this was rather lengthy and full of info, but please read it again and carefully to absorb all the info. If you have any questions regarding this post, please feel free to leave a comment or message me. That should do it and until next time thanks for reading.
