When I got up this morning, I found one of my computers was dead. Apparently, the power supply died during the night.
I have several computers in my home; this particular one ran twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. This computer ran my automated mail server that processed new Plus Edition subscription orders. It was also my personal Web server (not the newsletter's Web server), which stored a number of picture albums that I made available online to family and friends. In addition, it served as a second backup system for a few important files, such as all my e-mail and all my word processing documents, including all newsletters. (I maintain three backups of the more critical files: two daily backups to different systems on my network and a third backup each month to CD-ROM).
The computer that died this morning is one I built about four years ago and have left in continuous operation ever since. I calculate this service as being about 5,000 hours of continuous operation, including numerous power surges as thunderstorms and blizzards went by.
The loss is inconvenient but not a disaster. All important files on that system were backed up every night to another computer on my in-home network. The PC apparently died a short time before the scheduled nightly backup, but I have everything from the previous backup that was done 23 hours earlier. I will spend much of today buying a new computer, installing it on my network, and then restoring files and applications.
Now let me ask you a question: If your computer dies tonight, will you be backed up? Do you have a plan? Will you be able to recover your genealogy data, word processing documents, e-mail, and checkbook data?
Think about it…
