Don't Spend a Dime: The Path to Low-Cost Computing

Chapter 10. Data Backup

This is a true story. In 2002, I was working as a jack-of-all-trades computer guy for a small company. I fixed computers, debugged laptops, installed software, managed e-mail and web site servers for various companies, and everything in between. On one particular blue-sky, birds-are-singing day, my phone rang. A "high-level" employee (let's call him Tony) for one of the small businesses I supported was in near panic because some files on his computer had disappeared. He had been working all week on them, and when he left the office the previous night, the files were still there. The next morning, they were gone.

He looked in the Recycle Bin, but the files weren't there. He did a file search of his entire hard drive using ...