Soon or Later, Crash and Burn Happen in Every Dataville
5 tips to help you mitigate software and hardware glitches
My first smartphone was an Ericsson R380s. The second was a Sony Ericsson P800. I bought the second model in the first half of the last decade of the last century — around 2003. For me, the strongest appeal of a smartphone is, among other goodies the capacity to carry about hundreds or thousands of e-books. I read Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace (I also have the print copy) and Anna Karenina among several other classics on the P800 for the first time. I also enjoy listening to my MP3 files but portable storage came at a premium in those days. I bought a 128MB memory stick duo for N20,000. At over 20,000 times that same capacity, a 256GB micro SSD card sells for less than that amount on Amazon these days.
Presently, either on our portable devices or online storage, memory storage comes relatively very cheap. Spoilt as we all seem for choices, we often take them for granted forgetting that eventually a “crash and burn” will happen to every latest and shiningnest device from our ever expanding Dataville world. Often, these losses or damages occur at the least expected time.
Two years ago, a journalist friend of mine unfortunately fell into the hand of armed-robbers. He lost his laptop and all his portable storage devices. This prolific writer lost many years of hard-work in that single incident.
My 5 years old Windows 10 Dell laptop parked up after about 3 years into its 5 years of existence. The fault was a hard to get replacement battery. What saved the day for me was a 7-year-old rustic Samsung Windows 7 laptop (still running fine). Even when the hardware of our data devices are in good shape, a software or changes in software licensing agreements can suddenly lock you out of reach of all your invaluable data painstakingly gathered through the years.
As a writer, I found a barebones writer on my Android devices very handy. Typing on it is less distracting. It also syncs across all my devices, putting them within my reach at all times. My favorite text editor used to be Jotterpad Pro on Android. When the developer offered a onetime-off license that enabled synchronizing to one cloud storage provider, I immediately made a purchase. I even mentioned and recommended this app in one of my Medium stories. After over 7 years and hundreds of written and curated articles, the developers suddenly pulled the rug from under my feet. They reneged on their initial commitment of a one-for-all-time license and now insisted on a monthly subscription for options I neither needed nor could afford.
I lost access to my cloud synched files. All I had left were the duplicates on my devices. The chief attraction of being able to access my writings and curated files from anywhere and at any time was lost. So much for being a loyal customer. I have since learnt my lesson.
This March, uninstalling a security plugin (Wordfence) crippled my self-hosted WordPress website. All efforts to restore the site were futile. Rather than shell-out half the annual domain and hosting renewal fees to get a backed up copy of my site from my ISP, I opted for a complete redesign using my backed up files. The website was already old and many of the plugins were no longer active. Uploading images to the sight has become impossible as well. I left the old website to burn out. Now I’m rebuilding it afresh using backed up files of the website.
The point I’m making here is that eventually a crash will happen in every gadget storage device — Dataville. On the long run, the inevitable will happen. Prepare. Here are 5 tips to escaping a crash with minimal or no burns — data losses.
- Backup, backup, I repeat, backup your data. We all know this, but, most of us don’t do it. These days, it is possible to have several terabytes of storage comfortably ensconced in your shirt pockets. Save duplicates of your invaluable files on these very cheap devices.
- Use online storage — Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Amazon, Dropbox, Box, and Yandex. Yes, I use all of them. These giants magnanimously afford me over 50GB free online data storage. All together, I have not used up to 10% of the freely available storage. I use most of their free data for only my written texts, e-books, pictures(and almost zero video storage). Even if I were to live for 120 years and writing more actively, I cannot exhaust this much free online data space. Backup your data on both physical storage devices. Backup online as well.
- Duplicate your mobile devices. I know and I feel it, these are hard times. But all hard times don’t last forever. Ubiquitous as mobile telecom providers and services are, not all nook and crannies of my country (Nigeria)are well covered . Consequent upon this snag, you will find many of my compatriots with two mobile phones on, all the time. I have two mobile phones each with two different subscriber numbers. This arrangement enables me to take advantage of cheaper services offerings from competing telecom services providers. Also, it guarantees better chances of being always within reach when I move to regions where at least one service provider’s signals are within reach where other competing service providers are out of earshot. (Users of iPhones or even Android devices in other countries may not have this peculiar challenge though.) Most mobile phones can last for over 3 years sans broken screens and depleted irreplaceable batteries. However, frequent product and operating system software upgrade cycles are such that the best you can hope to get in terms of service years is three or four. At your next product upgrade, you can clone all your stored files into the old device and keep it securely at home. All you do afterwards is, regularly synchronize the files on your new device to the storage on the old device. Better still, should in case your new device suddenly pack up, or get stolen (sorry), you will not be unduly handicapped. All you need to do is to restore or resort to the data already synced to your old device.
- Do not rely on just one app. Store your writings or web clippings on at least two different apps. How did I escape from the aforementioned Jotterpad snafus? I backed up all my writings and published stories to OneNote besides Jotterpad. Even now, Jotterpad want to offer their premium service that I never require at half the prices I never solicited for nor could afford. A better and completely free alternative was waiting in the wings. Thank you Zoho Notebook app. I apply this strategy for many other apps that offer similar services as well– Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome, among others, WhatsApp and Telegram, Slack and Discord.
- Regularly checkup your online and physical storage — ensure they are OK. They will usually give hints when they are about to fail. In such cases, all you need do is to back up your old storage device to newer, latest, faster and cheaper storage device. This link provides useful tips and strategies to employ as you prepare for the day the unexpected happens. One of their strategies is, “ Backup, backup, backup. This ‘3–2–1’ rule, implying — “It’s three copies, [on] two different media, one off-site.””
Key Takeaways:
Eventually either hardware failures or software glitches or mishap happen that expose your invaluable data to the risk of irrecoverable loss. Some useful tips for mitigating such disasters include;
- Backup, backup, backup. All the time.
- Augment your physical storage devices with online storage all the time.
- Backup the data on your more expensive newer devices to your older devices. Keep old devices at home as go to fall backs should any mishap happens.
- It may be practical and handy to have different apps that offer the same services. If one app close-shop, you seamlessly continue your services on the “duplicate services” app.
- Replace your physical storage before they get obsolete. Similarly checkup your online storage from time to time.
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DISCLOSURE: The author has no marketing or affiliate relationship with any of the products mentioned in this story.