It happened to me when I least expected it…my computer crashed with everyones favorite BSOD. In the middle of a project. With a deadline coming up.

Data loss was massive (to me) in the amounts of hundreds of gigabytes lost. Mostly my multimedia and some auxiliary work files were gone. Most of the core files that I care about or use frequently were uploaded or saved to multiple places to add a level of redundancy. I even have an external HDD that I sometimes throw stuff on there to make sure I’m covered. None the less, my neighbors were probably concerned with the loud “NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” heard through the walls.

When I built my computer I configured RAID 1 on my hard disk drives (HDDs) so my data loss would be minimized. I knew that one day my HDDs would skip a beat or my OS crapped out on me or an act of God caused my computer to crash. It’s happened to me before and I learned my lesson the first time. So what happened? Why did I lose my data? Where was the point of failure?

After some digging around in my OS configurations and motherboard booklet I found that in my BIOS there is a setting to turn on and detect RAID automatically or manually. I had invariably set it to “manually” while performance testing a possibility of using a RAID1+0 scheme and never switched it back to auto detect with 2 HDDs. So in essence my 2 HDDs were not raided and all I was working with was one HDD.

Data loss hurts and is a pain to get back to the state that you were when it happened. Since then, I have been extra cautious to make sure my risk it minimized. Here are some tips:

• Configure and confirm multiple hard drives (HDD) in either RAID1 or RAID1+0 configuration
• Use an online file system to store file
  • I use www.dropbox.com and their desktop application to save my work to their folders
  • I use Google Docs to store important files as backups.
  • I also FTP my website changes to my domain space
• Perform weekly backups of your files on a separate storage system
  • External HDD
  • Online storage
  • Email yourself
• Redundancy is important
  • Reduces redoing a lot of work
  • Difficult to keep up if not automated
  • Should be used
• If you have done more than 5 minutes of work, BACK IT UP!
  • If it takes you 5 minutes to do something, think of how long it would take you to redo all the stuff you just lost…
  • Time = money 

My goals in the next few months are to have a work environment at home where I can work with performance and reliability as well as reduce or eliminate data loss. I hope to have a server built for my home office to act as my personal computers backup storage, my work storage, and my automated backup system. Moving my multi-media information on the server can also allow my personal computer, X-Box, and TV access to media all at once. I can also access my server from on the road if I needed to (thanks to no-ip.com). I have the case and most of the hardware; I just need the software and time to configure my setup.