Signs were brewing from last Monday, my MacBook Pro laptop computer and Adobe Lightroom were working slowly, very slow compared to usual. This was happening while I was processing a large quantity of Raw files. Couldn't figure what the problem was? Then Thursday night disaster struck.
My LaCie rugged external hard drive failed. This drive was less than 1 year old. Nuts.
Luckily
1) My MacBook Pro was working fine
2) Adobe Lightroom was working fine
3) I had some of the files on my MacBook Pro hard drive.
4) The bulk of the Photo files I had saved on the compact cards that I had used originally.
Solution:
1) find and buy a backup system for files -- after research I decided on a Drobo 4 bay storage array with 4 1.5 Terabyte Western hard drives --- the Drobo has a simplified system of backup that doesn't require a degree in computing to use. If 1 of 4 drives fail it is easy to replace the dead drive and repopulate the files.
2) The downside to not using such a backup system originally means that I have to reload the photo files from the compact flash cards and reframe (crop) and re-tweak them (because they are raw files). Whatever changes I had made to them originally were lost on the dead drive.
Lesson to be learned:
Create a backup system for all your files.
A useable backup system will be worth much to any photographer or computer user.
Properly backed up files will save a lot of aggravation.
Stay tuned to my blog to find out my evaluation of the Drobo (backup) system.
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