The title of this post is an old saying you might have heard somewhere along the way. You might also have come across the related phrase, “The shoemaker’s children go barefoot.” Either way, many interpret the maxim as “One often neglects those closest to oneself.” However, in this post, I’m going to give a different definition.
Oh boy, I can hear you already, “There John goes again…” LOL Well, you’d be correct. Before I explain how the cobbler phrase relates to computing, let’s review an old saying of mine:
ALL HARD DRIVES CRASH.
As I often have told people, the question is NOT “What should I do IF my hard drive crashes?” Instead, the question should be, “What do I do WHEN my hard drive crashes?” As we’ve moved from motor-driven hard drives to solid state drives, things have gotten better. With SSDs (solid state drives), there is no motor to freeze up or burn out. On paper, SSDs should last longer than the traditional drives. However, even solid state drives have limits, especially when it comes to how many times you can write to them. As we’ve progressed, SSDs have improved but, again, they are hard drives and ALL HARD DRIVES CRASH.
Because of this reality, I always urge people to use online backup like Carbonite. I rely on Carbonite for all of my computers and I like the software so much, I became a partner. However, most people only purchase the plan that backs up their data – pictures, documents, favorites, etc. For me, being in business, Carbonite alone is not enough. Additionally, I use Acronis True Image. This software creates a mirror image of each of my computers. Everything is mirrored – programs, boot drive, Windows, everything.
Wait! What do Carbonite and Acronis True Image have to do with the cobbler’s kids and their shoes? Let’s see if you can follow me on this: even though the cobbler is an expert on repairing and maybe even making shoes, his or her own kids go without shoes. Likewise, even though I’ve been in the computer business for eons and even though I buy really good computers for myself and Joyce, hard drives still crash for me!
That’s exactly what happened earlier this week. The solid state drive on my main computer – you know, the one with a 1TB SSD drive for Windows, a 4TB HHD fir data and 40 GB of RAM – crashed, big time! I couldn’t get anywhere on it; I couldn’t do anything. Since I had a mirror image that was just created the day before, I simply had to replace the old hard drive with a new, blank drive, boot up to my Acronis Rescue Drive and recover the image onto the new hard drive. It took all day and into the night but when it was finished and I rebooted my computer, all was well. My computer was back to the same condition as the day before, and I didn’t lose any programs. The few data files that were new since the mirror image was created the day before I simply downloaded from Carbonite. I was totally back in business.
Why am I relating this to you? A few reasons: 1) I hope you’ll use Carbonite or some other online backup if you have ANY documents or pictures you wouldn’t want to lose; 2) if being able to get your computer back to how it was before the hard drive crashed or some other disaster happened (ransomware, for example), I’d like to suggest you get Acronis True Image; and, 3) I want you to understand that the same frustrating things that happen to you with your computing devices, happen to us. We experience: hard drive failure; frozen websites; loss of the Internet; scam/fake emails; revamping of webpages that cause everything to be moved around and not where they used to be; and, so much more. Computing devices are great but anyone who tells you they can’t drive you up a wall sometimes, is a liar!
If you want to know more about Carbonite or Acronis True Image, just click the links below. If you decide that you should have True Image, I’ll be happy to help you regarding setup, how often to back up, and how to recover.
