The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/goretsky on 2024-07-29 04:23:50.

Hello,

So, I was in the process of updating my Windows installation USB flash drive, selected the RAID array by accident, and wiped it.

Nearly 30 years of personal files gone in a few seconds, including:

• my music collection, a lot of which is of CDs that are no longer available
• videos and pictures of friends and family
• all my personal documents, including email
• software collected over the years, including source code and stuff from pre-web companies that may not exist anywhere else
• my ebook library of technical publications, fiction, non-fiction, etc.

All inaccessible in a matter of seconds.

I have four separate (and completely current) ons-site backups so no data was lost at all, though. I also have off-site and off-region backups, but some of those are older.

Anyone can make a mistake or suffer an accident at any time. No matter how good your procedures are, no matter how much preventative maintenance you do swapping mediums, there's always the human factor to consider.

One of the most important things about backups is to ensure that they can be restored. I typically perform a sync of my backed-up data 2-3 times week to other computers and then spot-check it by verifying some of the new files open correctly.

At this point in time, I'm about 90 minutes out from having all of my personal data files restored. The program file collection will run overnight, though, and I'll check on that in the morning.

Learn from my mistake, and make backups.

And make backups of those backups.

And make backups of those backups of your backups.

And make backups of those backups of those backups of your backups.

The point is, you can never have too many backups.

This is the first time in many years I have had a major data loss incident like this, and while I am mildly frustrated and embarrassed, I also realize there is a teachable moment here to learn from, and maybe someone will find this helpful.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky