“My Motherboard, Myself” is the eighth episode from the fourth season of Sex and the City. In it, our protagonist, a professional writer who spends a good part of her life musing to her laptop, gets a visit from “Sad Mac,” the grim reaper of early-millennium technology.
Turns out, she hadn’t been backing up her work.
Miranda (on phone): When’s the last time you backed up?
Carrie: You know, no one talks about backing up. You’ve never used that expression with me before ever, but apparently everybody’s secretly running home at night and backing up their work.
Later, she picks up her computer and finds what was salvaged of her work looking like a “mess.”
Carrie: Can you please tell me why this happened in the first place?
Computer guy (a super-annoyed Aasif Mandvi): Well, we don’t know. Sometimes, these things just crash. We can replace your motherboard, but you have to get yourself a backup system. Pick out a zip drive. Start saving. Next time, you won’t lose everything.
Of course it’s all a catalyst to show the cracks in Carrie’s relationship with Aidan and a weak tie-in to the death of Miranda’s mother, but it’s the only backing up pop-culture reference I know. (You can watch the computer-related highlights of the episode here.)
I’ve watched the whole SATC series maybe a dozen more times than most people would ever admit to, so Carrie Bradshaw’s mishap was on my mind big-time when my hard drive crashed a couple of weeks ago. And not just because it made me want a triple cosmopolitan.
Luckily, however, unlike Carrie Bradshaw, I was prepared.
Now that’s not to say it wasn’t a HUGE pain in the ass inconvenience. It was. I mean, my entire livelihood hinges on my ability to sit in front of my computer nine hours a day. Without it, I literally can’t work. I did lose time, but it could have been WAY worse.
Luckily, a couple of years ago I attended a workshop with Caroline Green of Ivan Expert, a “boutique technology support firm providing Mac, iPhone, and iPad expertise to users in homes and businesses in NYC.” She is awesome and calming and their team really knows their stuff. I came home that day and immediately put her plans into action and they saved my butt.
So here’s how I roll:
- In addition to my primary computer, I have a laptop that I keep tuned-up and souped-up with the programs without which I can’t do my job (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, etc.). This allowed me to pick things up and get back to work pretty much right away. Keep this in mind when it’s time to get a new computer—it might be good to keep that older one around.
- I have a Time Capsule performing regular, automated, wireless back-ups (don’t even have to think about it or remember to do anything).
- I keep most of my files (including music and photos which can take up a ton of space) on an 8TB external hard drive that can be easily hooked up to the laptop (or any other computer).
Okay, but what if my house burns down or someone breaks in and robs me blind? So far all the stuff I’ve mentioned is physically in my office. So I also make sure that:
- I keep my most current working files and any files a client might need access to in Dropbox (so they can be accessed anywhere, any time).
- I have full back ups of my computer and my external hard drive saved remotely, automatically. I use CrashPlan for this.
Even with all of this, there were some hiccups (not all my fonts had been installed on the laptop, etc.), but those were super minor compared to what would have happened if I hadn’t been prepared. So let this be a lesson to you!
In the immortal words of Gwen Stefani, “Back it up, back it up, you got it, you got it.”
And on that note… Time to get back to work.
