[Gamoe]

Inspired by milhous's thread, I was wondering what we really consider important, data-wise. Are e-Mails important, are IM logs important? I think most people would consider their pictures, work and writing important, but what about these other things? Tell us, what do you consider most important.

I have many e-Mails, IM logs, etc... and yet I don't generally consider these all that important. I consider my writing, pictures and web site (backups) most important. The other stuff-- even music, I wouldn't like to lose, but I could eventually re-collect again, so I don't consider them vital. Not so with my own stuff. Most e-Mails and chats are kind of trivial, so again I don't find them that important.

[Goldfinger]

Music (I don't intend on reripping 16000 songs). Emails are pretty important too but not the end of the world if I lose them. Of course pics and (school)work are most important. IM logs don't interest me.

[willed]

You can get your music back, e-mails I'm not that bothered about, but pictures are irreplaceable. I've had some pretty amazing experiences over the last four years (since I've had a digital camera) and the pictures are bound up with those memories.

Also for some reason I'm quite attached to all my University work, despite the fact that I will never again need to know about the Arian controversy or issues surrounding authorship of the book of Daniel!

[OreoCookie]

I have prioritized my data, so here's my full backup plan.

Priority 1 data: my e-mails, my documents (papers, articles, homework assignments, etc.), my photos (over 20 GB). I back them up threefold: DVDs (last backup was roughly a week ago, usually once a month), a professional backup service offered by our university and to my external harddrive.

Priority 2 data: basically music (roughly 22 GB). I have older backups of my basic library on DVDs and I keep a copy on the external harddrive. As long as I have the basics, I can re-import the deltas by hand. Self-made movies: I usually backup the unedited source files, the edited files and the `final cut'. Everything except for the final product gets deleted from my harddrive.

Priority 3 data: movies. I burn those I deem valuable to me onto DVDs.

Last year, three harddrives died on me and I have only lost three files (two movies and another downloaded zip archive). As soon as my computer's hardware was up and running again, I had a working system with no harm done three hours later. I wish Apple would allow to export users and settings so I can use Migration Assistant, though.

[cla]

I guess anything 1) I've created myself AND 2) irreplacable, is really important.

I wonder in what extent we'd notice the difference if a computer would discard anything not explicitly saved by the user after some time quantum (say two weeks).

[Athens]

The only thing that was important to me was a photo of my bf and I together. Dam HD crashed a day later and lost it. Still have the bad hard drive, sooner or later I'll send it off to get it recovered, should only cost 1000 bucks.

[Gamoe]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie

Priority 1 data: my e-mails...[snip]...

Why are your e-Mails so important to you, OreoCookie? I mean, is it all your e-Mails, or some particular ones-- Personal correspondence or business? For example, I could understand wanting to keep e-Mails between a lover, or even a really good pal, but a lot of e-Mails, most probably, are kind of unimportant-- jokes, spam, links friends send, memos and topics of the moment... hardly anything timeless or worthwhile keeping.

[Mastrap]

Music is backed up on three drives. My iMac at work, external HD at work and my iPod. I am contemplating copying the music library to my PB that I use at home, but with a small 40GB drive I might not.

Photos are backed up to external drive and to flickr in full resolution.

Work related stuff is backed up to our server and then to an external drive.

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by Gabriel Morales

What (data) is important to you?

Metadata, metadata, metadata.

[storer]

Music and photos... that's about the summary. Nothing else is that valuable.

[nredman]

music, photos, videos, and other important stuff

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Gabriel Morales

Why are your e-Mails so important to you, OreoCookie? I mean, is it all your e-Mails, or some particular ones-- Personal correspondence or business? For example, I could understand wanting to keep e-Mails between a lover, or even a really good pal, but a lot of e-Mails, most probably, are kind of unimportant-- jokes, spam, links friends send, memos and topics of the moment... hardly anything timeless or worthwhile keeping.

Well, two main reasons: personal e-mail I definitely want to keep. Then there are other e-mails that are important, containing licensing keys or login data for instance. Spam I definitely delete right away -- most of the time anyway.

The other point is that it is too much of an effort to me to dig through my mailboxes to extract `important' e-mails which I want to keep and delete the rest. You're right, I could do away with tons of newsletters for instance, but on the other hand, they are not taking too much space.

I guess I don't want to put any effort into eliminating e-mails, though It's much more efficient to delete duplicate or junk pictures from my picture library.

[angelmb]

net settings anyone?

[wdlove]

My music, documents, E.Mail, and settings are all very important to me.

[Hash]

Originally Posted by storer

Music and photos... that's about the summary. Nothing else is that valuable.

I do understand photos, but music? You can rip or find almost any kind of music.

[jasonsRX7]

Originally Posted by Hash

I do understand photos, but music? You can rip or find almost any kind of music.

But the time it takes to do so would certainly be longer than the time spent doing an occasional back up of it. I use iBackup once a week to copy all my music, photos, email, and documents to an external firewire drive.

[Hash]

if it is only time to revive (rerip and so on) the lost file collection, can it be called valuable? I think valuable means not only loss of time. Something you cannot recover, something you cannot find again - thats valuable, but hardly few gigs of rock

[Stradlater]

Originally Posted by Hash

if it is only time to revive (rerip and so on) the lost file collection, can it be called valuable? I think valuable means not only loss of time. Something you cannot recover, something you cannot find again - thats valuable, but hardly few gigs of rock

I completely disagree. Time is one of the most valuable things we waste.

[Scotttheking]

My entire home directory is backed up, with a copy kept off site.

[DeathToWindows]

Let's see : research (data generated by what I do)... school work (undergrad)... code... video... photos (around 15Gb)... music (20+Gb)

Oy.

Oh, yeah - that's why the really mission-critical stuff is on my 1Gb flash drive...

[Scotttheking]

Originally Posted by DeathToWindows

Oh, yeah - that's why the really mission-critical stuff is on my 1Gb flash drive...

My flash drive that served that purpose failed

[Hash]

Originally Posted by Stradlater

I completely disagree. Time is one of the most valuable things we waste.

Of course, time is money. But still I would say that few mp3 of music cannot count as valuables.

[SirCastor]

Mostly my Writing. I've written 1 full novel, and started on another. Emails would be good to keep, because it represents a lot of my business life, and communication with people.

[strictlyplaid]

I'm a Ph.D. student, so any and all research is triple-backed up (two hard drives in my main desktop PC, plus to a flash drive.) I'm planning to start up an FTP server machine at work to get an off-site backup as well; that way, only something that destroys the entire town would cause a problem. :-)

Everything else (music, pics, etc.) is backed up to the two hard drives, which I think is sufficient.