Saturday, December 29, 2007

Computer Crash 2007

it is not if but when will your computer crash that is a known issue.

12 months and 2 days after my last fiasco, I am happy to announce that my computer power supply caught on fire. AGAIN.

Fortunately, I have LEARNED a valuable lesson and other than a tiny heart attack, I am fine.

reason why? well one is that I have a laptop that is configured identically to my desktop so that my work environment is seamless. I literally unplugged my monitor, keyboard, and mouse from the desktop, into the laptop and I am back in business.

my files are primarily stored on my desktop on a separate hard drive, C:\ is for program files only. once I have 'built' my 'image' which is a clean install of all critical programs, then my husband made a copy so that he can copy it back over to any new hard drive, takes about an hour. instead of 22 hours of finding software and finding licenses and keys and stuff. I have since learned to keep all my goodies in one 'critical program files DVD' since most are downloaded, I created a section on my hard drive with folders for each program, and them downloaded the latest installation file for each and the 'key.txt' for each and I can get all my stuff on one dvd, which is handy.

the second tidbit that I have to share is that we integrated a RAID 4 last year, and while I still back up to DVD and keep a hard copy in a cd case, the files are all on the RAID in a back up that is run each night after 8 pm before I shut down for the night. so I have all my files stored off the hard drive as well, how in the world ANYONE could function without a redundant back up is beyond me.

now for cost: yes the desktop is $1K and yes the laptop is $1K and yes the RAID 4 is $1K but think about it. for $3K I have not had one single head ache/heart ache during this fatal situation. my house didnt burn down, that was a good thing. my files are all still there, that is a really good thing and no one but you and me know that this happened, so my client are not even aware that I had an hour of downtime while I was switching over from Primary to Secondary.

I am waiting for my Primary Camera to arrive next week, then my current Primary will be my Backup. then I can stop stressing all together.

Happy New Year to all and to all a Great Weekend!