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Not a Penny Wasted

March 20th, 2007 2

About a month and a half ago, I lost my new camera somewhere in New York. I spent a day and a half looking for it, but I pretty quickly accepted that it was gone. I’d only bought it at Christmas, so there was no homework to do—I was getting the exact same model again, the excellent [Canon SD600](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000EMWBT2/).

SD600

Having to replace a lost or stolen item is a frustrating process. But as I dropped $200 on another camera, I stopped for a moment to be thankful for what I *didn’t* lose: In just a month and a half of service, that first camera covered Christmas with the family, as well as my first few weeks in New York, a total of 681 pictures. In the weeks since I bought its replacement, I’ve been to Vermont, Boston, Philadelphia, and D.C., where I’ve racked up over a thousand *more* snaps.

That camera’s memory card was empty. I didn’t lose a single picture. And yet, for the vast majority of those pictures, the only copy was on my laptop. A small minority were posted to Facebook albums… but Facebook is a display mechanism, not a backup. I was long overdue for a proper backup solution.

### Backup

I’ve [written previously](http://uwmike.com/articles/2005/12/06/quick-server-backup/) about using rsync and cron to back stuff up remotely. But when I wrote that, I was talking about 50 MB of assorted PHP scripts and SQL dumps from a forum and a blog. I wasn’t talking about 10 GB of photos and 12 GB of MP3 files. Even with incremental backup, that’s a *tremendously* large initial bandwidth commitment.

LaCie

I wanted something quicker and easier, which meant going local. There were two options: writable DVDs, or an external hard drive.

As I stood in the [Fifth Avenue Apple Store](http://www.apple.com/retail/fifthavenue/) clutching a meagre package of DVD-Rs, I knew already it was a band-aid, not a cure. I’d burn the discs once, I’d never verify them ever, and I’d only occasionally update an incremental disc. I put them down and wandered over to look at external drives.

I ended up buying a bad-ass [LaCie 320 GB](http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10058), for—with the tax—almost exactly $200. Is there not some poetic about that? It came formatted for Mac, it came with the cables I needed to hook it up, and it came with software for a one-touch dump of my whole home directory. Not just the photos and music, but *all* of it. Whoosh.

### Peace of Mind

Backup and peace of mind is kind of a cliche. In reality, anything important I do on my computer is on other computers that I’m shelled into. If I lost my computer, there would be a period of mourning, and then I would simply buy another and move on.

But at least now if I lose it, it’s *only* a matter of a financial setback, and not also an emotional one.

Mike

Discussion

  1. Did you buy the camera at B&H by any chance? I picked up a Canon PowerShot S60 there refurbished last term for around $180. You can get some sweet deals on cameras with larger sensors and stronger flashes if you shop around. The S60 for example does very well in low light because of its CCD size. If you want great video performance, a large LCD, or a snappy UI, of course, an older camera might not do.

    Posted at 11:21 pm on May 2nd by Chris.

  2. I bought another SD600, on Amazon.com. The low-light performance is not-great, but its biggest feature for me is definitely the compact size. It’s smaller than my wallet; the light mass and slender bulk means I’m much more likely to have it on me at any given time. Even if the individual snaps are suckier, I make up for it in volume.

    Posted at 11:39 pm on May 2nd by Mike Purvis.

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