Honey, Where did I save those files?

Normally I would include artwork on the blog but this topic is important and I don't want you to be distracted by any shinies.  If you have taken any photo class at the Art Institute, I am sure you have heard this from your instructors, but it is IMPORTANT and it needs to be said again...

BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP! 

Do it.  Don't forget.  Make it part of your work flow and don't blow it off because its a pain in the but, or it takes too long.  If time is an issue, get you work done earlier so you have time to backup your files.  Why is it important?  I'll tell you why...hard drive failure happens.  It happens when you least expect it and when you can least afford for it to happen.

I have personally had 2 incidents when I have had irreversible hard rive failures.  First was a couple of years ago after I returned from a deployment.  I had all of my images saved on an external hard drive.  That hard drive had accompanied me around the world and back again with no issues.  Then one day it just wouldn't spin any more.  If this had been a copy of all of my data it would have been fine, but it was the only copy.  Not fine.  $2300 later and I was able to recover all of my data.  This is not the way to go.

More recently, and by this I mean last Thursday, I lost files again.  I was in the process of moving files and images to my new Mac.  Some how I managed to format my external hard drive (so I could have the proper file system for the Mac) without verifying that I had a second copy of the data on another hard drive.  The last time I made a full backup of my files was in late October of last year.  OUCH.  I lost almost a year's worth of images and to make it worse I did it myself.  It wasn't hard drive failure, it was plain old human error.

Now that I am done kicking myself, I am looking at realistic file back up options.  I have a dropbox account, but it's not big enough to hold all of my data.  The same goes for Copy.  Its bigger but not big enough to hold all my data.  The other option is to use an external drive with Time Machine on the Mac.  Another option is to get a set of external drives configured in RAID 1. 

I haven't decided yet what option I am going to go with, but I am sure it will be a combination of multiple options.  What is your backup solution?  How do you fit it into your workflow?  Let me a comment letting me know, or feel free to ask a question about backup options.