Why one copy is never enough

Most of the data loss we see at the workshop doesn't come from some spectacular hack. It comes from a drive that fails without warning, a phone dropped in water, a folder deleted by mistake and emptied from the bin, or a stolen machine. In every case, the common thread is the same: there was only one copy of the file.

A hard drive almost never announces its death. It works, then one morning it clicks or is no longer recognised. Recovery is then possible in some cases, but it costs time and money, and it's never guaranteed. An up-to-date backup costs infinitely less.

The 3-2-1 rule, in practice

Three copies. The original on your computer or phone, plus two backups. Two, because a backup can itself fail at the exact moment you need it.

Two different media. Don't put your two backups on two external drives bought on the same day: they age together. An external drive and an online storage space are already two independent technologies.

One copy away from home. This is the point almost everyone forgets, and it's the one that matters most. An external drive sitting next to the computer faces exactly the same risks as the computer itself: power surge, water damage, fire, burglary. The remote copy can be an online storage space, or simply a drive left with a relative and brought back once a month.

What the climate changes in Guadeloupe

Three local factors weigh directly on backups. Power cuts and micro-outages damage power supplies and corrupt file systems: a backup interrupted mid-write can become unusable. A surge-protected power strip, or better still a small UPS, protects both the machine and the backup in progress.

Humidity and heat shorten the life of mechanical drives, especially ones left plugged in permanently in a room without air conditioning. A backup drive should be stored somewhere dry, unplugged, and connected only for the backup itself.

Hurricane season is the best reason there is to have a copy away from home. A computer and its external drive, in the same house, disappear together. It's also the right time of year to check that the backup still works.

A backup never tested is not a backup

This is the most useful piece of advice on this page. Open the backup and restore one file at random: a photo, a document. If it opens correctly, your backup is alive. Do this test once a quarter. We regularly see people who had been backing up for two years... into an empty folder, because the software had stopped working without saying so.

Also check what is backed up. Many automatic backups only take the "Documents" folder and leave out the desktop, downloads, phone photos and messages. List what you don't want to lose, then check that those items are actually in the copy.

What about the phone?

Today it's the device that holds the most irreplaceable memories, and the one that's least well backed up. Automatic syncing of the phone to an online storage space counts as a copy away from home — provided it's actually active, the space isn't full, and the account is protected by a strong password. A full online storage space stops syncing silently.

Watch out for a common confusion: syncing is not a backup. If you delete a photo on the phone, it also disappears from the synced cloud. A real backup keeps a history, or at least a copy that nothing automatically erases.

Where to start if you have nothing

Don't look for the perfect solution: start with one copy. Buy an external drive, copy your photos and documents onto it, and store it somewhere dry. You've already moved from total risk to reasonable risk. You'll add the remote copy afterwards.

If you don't know where your files are, or if the computer is already unstable, get this done before it's too late: copying a drive that still works is simple, recovering a dead one is not.