How much music is on your computer?

What if you lost it all?

How much time and money would it take to replace it?

That was the question my brother Dan asked me. Dan is the computer wiz in my family and makes his living fixing computers.

When I checked I saw I have over 12 GB of music on mine! That equals roughly 2600 songs + all my pictures and all my indoorcycleinstructor.com files. My whole life is on this computer and I'm entrusting it to this little hard-drive?

Dan recommended that I back it up - but not with an external hard drive that I have to remember to use. I think the last time I backed up was New Years day. Once a year isn't quite enough.

He suggested I try a service like this one that does it automatically:
Carbonite Online Backup. Unlimited backup--secure and encrypted, for just $54.95 per year. Start your free trial today!

Here is a page with additional information that includes free tools for backing up your browser (FireFox/IE) settings. https://www.indoorcycleinstructor.com/backup/

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John

Host of the Indoor Cycle Instructor Podcast - the #1 Internet radio show for and about Spinning / Indoor Cycling Instructors and Cycling Studio owners.
John is a member on the AFS (Association of Fitness Studios) Advisory Council.
Holding certifications from; Schwinn, Heart Zones, Team ICG and Life Time Fitness, John's held regularly scheduled cycling classes between 1998 and 2015 when he moved to Florida.
When the weather permits, you'll find him riding and leading outdoor groups by himself or with his Tandem partner (wife) Amy.

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4 Comments

Stephen Grady on May 3, 2009 at 4:44 pm

Few people have a backup strategy. A manual procedure, while a start, is not sufficient as you have indicated – you have to remember to do it. Online services are nice for a couple of reasons. Perhaps one of the best is that it is off-site. Backing up to external media (tape, hard drive, CD/DVD) is good, but if something happened to your home, are the backups lost as well. The downside of online services is the bandwidth requirements. At least initially. I have 80+ GB of music on my computer. The initial backup would take a long time, but incremental backups after that would be small (how often is new music added).

Your computer’s hard drive will stop working. Sooner than you planned or thought. A backup strategy is insurance, protection, for when that happens.

My wife ignored my recommendations for a backup program (“…too expensive…”); when her hard drive crashed, she spent $1800 recovering the data from it.

John on May 4, 2009 at 8:32 am

Thanks Stephen,
I had a hard drive begin to fail awhile back and was able to have my brother Dan copy it and then transfer the files to a new hard drive. It would have cost >$200.00 if I had to pay for having it done.
I have been using the Carbonite Backup Software for a week now. Yes, it did take about 4 days for the initial backup. I was amazed at how painless it was. It just runs in the background whenever it can. It shows a cool little green dot on each file or folder once it’s backed up.
You can tell it to pause if you need the bandwidth – like when I upload a Podcast episode MP3 to my server or you can set it to ” low priority” so it doesn’t interfere with browsing.

One thing to be aware of; it won’t backup your music files during the free 15 day trial – but does after you make payment.

Alan on May 4, 2009 at 4:05 pm

I currently have 14,327 tracks consuming 72.4 GB of space. In addition I have over 31GB of photos. Carbonite or other online backup is just not feasible for my backup as my connection is not that fast. Here is what I do..
All data (music & photos) resides on an external drive (E). I also have another external drive (F) and using a program Super Flexible Synchronizer all data is backed up daily to this additional drive. That solves the issue if (when) my “E” drive dies. But what if a fire hit or our house was broken into?
Weekly I back all up to my 160GB iPod. The iPod always travels with me. Now realize that iTunes will not allow you to transfer music from your iPod to ITunes, but there are other programs that will allow this.
I feel this is a good working strategy for me.

Thanks for the Podcast!
Alan

Spook on May 8, 2009 at 3:04 pm

I have 3,000+ songs, but I work hard at keeping it pretty clean. God only know how many grand kid photo’s.

I use Carbonite on the PC side and am very satisfied with . I believe that now have a Mac version at least in Beta. There is also one called Mozy which does support Macs. Both are in the same prices range.

Just remember
YOUR HARD DRIVE WILL FAIL AT SOME TIME!!!!!!!!

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Stephen Grady on May 3, 2009 at 4:44 pm

Few people have a backup strategy. A manual procedure, while a start, is not sufficient as you have indicated – you have to remember to do it. Online services are nice for a couple of reasons. Perhaps one of the best is that it is off-site. Backing up to external media (tape, hard drive, CD/DVD) is good, but if something happened to your home, are the backups lost as well. The downside of online services is the bandwidth requirements. At least initially. I have 80+ GB of music on my computer. The initial backup would take a long time, but incremental backups after that would be small (how often is new music added).

Your computer’s hard drive will stop working. Sooner than you planned or thought. A backup strategy is insurance, protection, for when that happens.

My wife ignored my recommendations for a backup program (“…too expensive…”); when her hard drive crashed, she spent $1800 recovering the data from it.
John on May 4, 2009 at 8:32 am

Thanks Stephen,
I had a hard drive begin to fail awhile back and was able to have my brother Dan copy it and then transfer the files to a new hard drive. It would have cost >$200.00 if I had to pay for having it done.
I have been using the Carbonite Backup Software for a week now. Yes, it did take about 4 days for the initial backup. I was amazed at how painless it was. It just runs in the background whenever it can. It shows a cool little green dot on each file or folder once it’s backed up.
You can tell it to pause if you need the bandwidth – like when I upload a Podcast episode MP3 to my server or you can set it to ” low priority” so it doesn’t interfere with browsing.

One thing to be aware of; it won’t backup your music files during the free 15 day trial – but does after you make payment.
Alan on May 4, 2009 at 4:05 pm

I currently have 14,327 tracks consuming 72.4 GB of space. In addition I have over 31GB of photos. Carbonite or other online backup is just not feasible for my backup as my connection is not that fast. Here is what I do..
All data (music & photos) resides on an external drive (E). I also have another external drive (F) and using a program Super Flexible Synchronizer all data is backed up daily to this additional drive. That solves the issue if (when) my “E” drive dies. But what if a fire hit or our house was broken into?
Weekly I back all up to my 160GB iPod. The iPod always travels with me. Now realize that iTunes will not allow you to transfer music from your iPod to ITunes, but there are other programs that will allow this.
I feel this is a good working strategy for me.

Thanks for the Podcast!
Alan
Spook on May 8, 2009 at 3:04 pm

I have 3,000+ songs, but I work hard at keeping it pretty clean. God only know how many grand kid photo’s.

I use Carbonite on the PC side and am very satisfied with . I believe that now have a Mac version at least in Beta. There is also one called Mozy which does support Macs. Both are in the same prices range.

Just remember
YOUR HARD DRIVE WILL FAIL AT SOME TIME!!!!!!!!

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