Backing up your data is a lot like flossing. You know the benefits. It is relatively inexpensive. It doesn’t take too much time. And, it can prevent a lot of pain down the road.

The hard drive in my PowerBook (laptop) went far south the other night. Dead. No resurrection in sight.

Although, I did not have a complete back up—as in a nice Time Machine backup—I had recently copied all documents from it in anticipation of an upgrade to Leopard. I am now in the midst of reinstalling apps and documents and will soon have weathered this event unscathed except for a slightly lighter wallet.

In fact, as a result of this I am better off.

Pre-crash:

• 60GB of Storage
• 4200 RPM
• OS 10.4 Tiger

Post-crash:

• 160 GB of Storage
• 5400 RPM
• OS 10.5 Leopard (Time Machine will ensure better backups in the future)

Moral of the story: backup, backup, then backup!