That Big Data Heaven In The Sky....

You know, one the first Geek Commandments is "Thou Shalt Always Keep Backups of Critical Data". I have broken this Commandment, and I am heartily sorry. Three head-knocks and a good swift kick in the ass is my penance.

My 20GB hard disk died a few days ago (a Quantum drive, which in me experience is a pretty reliable brand); I came in to work and saw my Windows NT machine sitting on a blue screen. Reboot and...nothing. The drive was well and truly dead. I took it home and attached it my main linux box in the hope that it was just some kind of Windows foolishness, but no luck: the drive was gone. And naturally I hadn't done a backup in months, so I completely lost lots of stuff that will take weeks to re-create.

I have sinned, and I am sorry. I swear I will go forth and sin no more. My backups are running even as I write this.