I’ve been replacing the hard drive on my Mac Mini, the one that runs my TV. Mac Minis are not easy beasts to disassemble, and it’s something which could be a fairly daunting process were it not for the wealth of information online from those who have walked this path before.
Fortunately, the disk which died had little on it that was of importance. All the past episodes of Frasier and Poirot are stored on a separate drive! But fixing it has still been time-consuming. It brought home once again the message that all hard disks die. In particular, as we strive for ever-smaller devices, the 2.5in ‘laptop’ drives are becoming ever more popular, and these die much more frequently than their larger counterparts. Many of them will last for 10 years. Some will turn up their little tootsies after 6 months. But they will all go in the end.
So look around your house or office and consider your backup strategies. The question to ask yourself is “What will I do when this machine dies and all the data goes away?”
Go on. Do it now, because it might happen this afternoon. Start with the machine you’re using to read this post. And note the ‘when‘. If we are tempted to say if, as the old saying goes, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
What will I do when this machine dies and all the data goes away?
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