“I will back up my data. I will back up my data.”

“A Stitch In Time Saves Nine” seems like a very good paradigm to live by – and most people follow this rule when it comes to their car or renewing their annual anti-virus software subscription.

But why have people a different attitude when it comes to data backups, including their websites and mysql databases? I just don’t get it. And neither does Jochen Wolters in a recent opinion piece:

“The Hawk Wings blog on all things Apple Mail has a story about a sobering experience with Apple’s .Mac support. (…) In a nutshell, a lawyer lost all of his Address Book entries after syncing with his .Mac account. He turned to .Mac support for help with restoring his data as, in his own words, “this is a very, very serious problem, with heavy consequences for me.” When the reply email from Apple pointed out that the data cannot be restored on the .Mac servers and that, generally, he should make back ups of his data, he threatened to sue Apple: “Should this happen again, not only would I lose any confidence in Apple’s .Mac service — I would also probably consider seeking reparation.”

Of course, the Address Book data shouldn’t have been lost during the synchronization process. Of course, those support emails should have sounded a bit more “human.” With a back up in place, however, there wouldn’t have been any need to ask for support in the first place.(…)”

Basically, all computer-related media — every website, every support forum, every podcast, every book, etc., etc., — restate over and over and over again that you must make backups of your data, because it’s a question of “when you will lose data,” not “if.” If there are still people out there who think they can get away without backing up, they must either be highly ignorant or highly irresponsible. (…)

It’s very difficult to think of the right words to state just how ridiculously obvious it is that losing important data is a disaster, and I am sure that there isn’t a single person among our knowledgeable readers here at Mac DevCenter who does not back up their machines. (…)

Whatever approach you choose, back ups can — and will! — make all the difference between a major personal catastrophe and a fifteen-minute inconvenience.

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