Friend Suffers Terrible Computer Crash & Loses Everything

A friend and fellow copywriter who has been freelancing about the same amount of time as I have posted the following update on Facebook a couple days ago:

Crap, someone broke into my office this weekend. All of my computers… stolen. Backup hard drive, gone. 7 years of work, swipe files, gone. Devastating…

I feel really bad for my friend. I can’t imagine losing that many years of work.

The hardest part would be losing any projects that were still “in progress” because you’d have to start over and negotiate a new deadline.

About three years ago, I began doing more of my writing work on Google Drive (Google Docs back then). I did this partially to protect my work and partially to make it accessible from both my iMac and my old Dell laptop.

Then about a year ago, I got a SugarSync account and hooked up all my different computers to it. Backups happen automatically anytime any files are added or updated. And I can access my files from any computer no matter where I am.

This has given me greater peace of mind.

I don’t have to worry as much about what could happen to my computers.

The two scenarios that concerned me the most were:

1. My hard drive crashing and the data being unrecoverable.
2. A house fire that completely destroyed my computers.

I had not considered theft until now.

I work in an office, too.

The door to my office is locked (as are all the others in the building), but the doors are flimsy.

Fortunately, we have security cameras in the building and parking lot so any would-be thief would probably be identified and caught relatively quickly.

And with the exception of my computer and my business books, I keep nothing of value in my office.

But theft is still a possible scenario to plan for as my friend’s experience demonstrates.

Anyway, if you haven’t backed up your files in the cloud, you really should. You never know when something unexpected will happen.

I personally use a combination of Google Drive, SugarSync, and Dropbox.

Good luck, and keep your data safe.

-Ryan M. Healy