> No drive is reliable, so you assume the life is going to be 3 years and you have robust mirroring and backups and replacement policies. A thousand times this

> No drive is reliable, so you assume the life is going to be 3 years and you have robust mirroring and backups and replacement policies. A thousand times this. Over the last 2,5 decades I lost far more data than I’d like to admit. Floppy disks and CD-Rs that went bad, hard disks that failed, FTP services that were discontinued or corrupted data, etc. My backup strategy right now: * I have SSDs for use as system disks on all my computers. I keep track of their use and how long I’ve had them. Once one of them turns 3 years old, I’ll swap it out for a new one. * Those computers are all connected to a Time Capsule (Time Machine) for incremental changes. * Some files are also continually saved on iCloud (not all apps support it.) * At night, a real backup gets run from the computers to a Drobo RAID setup. * Everything of value (files I created) gets sent to Backblaze daily (an online backup service). * For web projects, I also use a hosted subversion service. * Most media I buy is cataloged by iTunes Match, where I can download it again whenever I need it. * I use Dropbox, but not for backup, I use it to view files on the go and to share them with others. I know my setup is not perfect, and I could use advice to improve it. I haven’t lost data in the last 3 years, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I do count myself lucky to still have all my emails dating back to 1998 (but not the emails from 1994-1997). In large part, I have iCloud (née iTools, .mac, MobileMe) to thank for that.