Why Hard Drives are Ruining Your Life

SHARE THE LOVE

Welcome to my new #technology column! Are you a geek? Fan of Star Wars? Just looking for technology tips and trends for your business? You’ve come to the right place.

So.. Hard drives. They fail. A lot. Like, all the time. It’s not just you—your luck isn’t that bad. (Or maybe you’re one of those lucky people that hasn’t experienced this much? Oh, just wait… The hard drive fairy is coming for you next…) Hard drives have, on average, a 1 in 17 chance of failing in the first year. Those aren’t good odds when your company’s future is on the line.

Hard drives are a necessary part of life—it’s where we keep everything from our most treasured memories to last year’s expense report. It’s not like we can just do without them. Or can we?

Well, ok, we can’t completely do without them. But we can plan for their inevitable failure. Depending on what you’re storing, there are a multitude of options available.

Documents & Photos

The cloud is your friend. Seriously, buy it a beer or something. There are a multitude of very inexpensive services like Dropbox and Google Drive that make backing up your data to the cloud an automated breeze. Google and Amazon also offer automatic photo upload and backup from your telephone! Here are a few options to look into:

 

Computer Backup

If you have a Mac, chances are you’ve heard of Time Machine. You should use it. Not only does it protect against hard drive failure, it also protects against user error. You know that sinking feeling in your gut when you realize you just deleted something you really shouldn’t have? Time Machine has you covered. Windows has two similar systems called, with far less pomp, File History and Backup & Restore.

But what happens if there’s a fire? Or a flood? Or, far more likely, a flood of coffee spilled across your desk? (For shame…) Local backups are great, but—again—the cloud is your friend. Check out the following:

Full disclosure: We use a custom enterprise solution here, so we haven’t neccesarily tried all of the above, but we hear good things.

 

Small Business Solutions

If you’re running a small business, chances are you don’t have the capacity, budget, or know-how to work with an enterprise system. Good news! The above companies all have plans for business too!

But what about local storage!? If you’re not tech-savvy at all and just want something that works, I recommend checking out Drobo. Not only is it an incredibly cost-efficient way of storing data, but it’s probably the easiest-to-use data storage device on the market. If you’re looking for something with more flexibility, look into getting a local NAS or SAN. If you don’t have an IT guy on staff, any local IT company that works with small businesses can help you out.

 

Enterprise Solutions

If you’re already at the enterprise level, chances are you have people for this and you probably aren’t getting your data storage advice from us. But if you’re curious about big data as a service, take a look at Cazena.

 

So what do WE do?

If you’ve worked with us before, you’d probably categorize us as a small business. For the most part, you wouldn’t be wrong. But production companies are experts at scalability. Need to film a couple testimonials? No problem. Have a three-month project filming in locations across the country? Whether it’s cows, raccoons, or really fast cars, we can handle it. So when it comes to keeping your terabytes of data secure, we’re on top of it. Our enterprise cloud storage technology has a durability rating of 99.999999999%. Or, roughly a 1/100,000,000,000 chance of failure. That’s about 5,000,000,000% more durable than a desktop hard drive. (Seriously. I checked my math three times on this.)

 

About New Sky Productions
New Sky Productions works directly with clients from Boston to Seattle to produce impactful media content. We utilize our outstanding in mass communication and cinematography, employing talented editors with state-of-the-art equipment to deliver compelling visual storytelling pieces that connect businesses more directly with their client base. Through dynamic video production and video exposure we increase sales, brand awareness, and consumer engagement.