It looks like end user data loss is going to be a significant theme this week. Over the weekend the news was about Sidekick users and Danger’s data center issues . Now it appears that a problem in Snow Leopard can cause users to lose all their data when they switch to “guest” and then back to their user account. The answer is backups (and not just one), performed on a regular basis. You don’t need a complicated backup strategy for your personal data just an effective one. Jochen Wolters of O'Reilly's digitalmedia blog published a set of straight forward Best Practices for Personal Backup. Given the relatively low cost per gigabyte of storage devices today, and the breadth of available devices (Apple’s Time Machine, external USB drive) there is no reason not to have backups of your data.
It doesn’t require expensive hardware or fancy software. My off site backups consist of 2 500GB Western Digital hard drives and a batch file utilizing Windows Robocopy to update my backups with new or changed files. Every time I add new media or update a critical file I start my batch file before leaving my desk (I could also use set up a scheduled backup using the Windows at command). There is no reason in this day and age that a user should lose their data.
Major bug in Snow Leopard deletes all user data
