This story is about the common computer user. The one who never has time or interest in backing up the information on their computers. Little do they know, that lurking around the corner is heartbreak and misery. There are many ways to prevent this, but most folks avoid them saying, “it is too expensive,” or “I don’t have time.” Even better are the ones that say, “I don’t have anything of value on my computer.” So let us explain things so you can think about what you are about to lose when that hard drive gets corrupted or dies. All the pictures you have edited and cropped, all the music you have loaded into iTunes, all the movies (homemade or purchased) are at risk. Add to this all the software and software updates, settings files and downloaded items that may not even be around any more. What about all your email, plus the settings for your email? How many websites do you have bookmarked/favorites? You will have to type them all in again, if you can even remember what they were. All this exciting fun is just waiting around the corner for you when The Event happens. Why do hard drives die? Like human bodies they get old, slow and pass away from old age. The average life span of a hard drive is five years. Most die sooner, some last for much longer than anyone would have guessed. Some hard drives just get corrupted but this can damage all the files and they have to be erased, taking all your data along with them. So my friends, buy an extra hard drive and back up your data. Back it up often and if possible keep a copy of your information off-site (not in your house). Think of the hours of restoring you will be saving yourself when the device fails. For those of you thinking that a drive recovery firm is your magic answer, keep in mind most fees start around $1000 and work their way up from there. If you are not sure how to do a backup, then hire someone to show you how. Spend a little now, save a lot of time and money later. Time Machine application from Apple does backups every hour of the changes you make. It is easy to use; however, you need a drive that is much larger than the drive you are backing up, because it never throws anything away. I suggest if you’re backing up a one terabyte hard drive, buy a two or three terabyte backup drive for Time Machine. You can also use cloning software like Carbon Copy Cloner from Mike Bombich (this used to be free but I heard they are starting to charge $39.95 for it). SuperDuper has been out there a long time and is my favorite. It costs $27.95 from Shirt Pocket Software, and so far all of my updates have been free. If you buy a cloning program your hard drive can be the same size as your computer’s because you are making a exact copy of your boot drive. In fact, you should be able to boot your computer from this copy and use it. So with all this information, decide soon if you want pain and sorrow, or an easy return to normal computing. But do not rant and rave that your hard drive died and it’s all Apple’s fault—it is not. It is just what happens.
I had a customer ask the other day when the new computers are coming out. My stock answer to this is “when Apple releases them.” Apple takes new computer releases very seriously and takes great pains to keep the releases to themselves until the last minute. Frankly that has worked in their favor for many years, so I do not see it changing anytime in the future. So your best bet is wait if you need a computer, and then buy the computer that best suits your needs. A good rule of thumb is that Apple will do one major upgrade of most of the line once a year and possibly a minor update of the processor later on if new chips come out. Computer we are still waiting on is the Mac Pro. It should get a major overhaul early next year so if you need one of those you are in for a wait.
Reading online I see people complaining about their computer only being out of warranty for three months and that Apple will not fix their broken computer for free. When you buy your computer you get one year, and you can add two more years by buying AppleCare. I suggest doing so. Apple is in the business to make money, as in all computer businesses some will fail within a certain period of time. Buying an extended service plan makes good sense if you are looking at long term usage of the product. Bad mouthing Apple for not extending the stated warranty just lets everyone know you made a bad judgment call on not buying the service contract. As a personal note, I buy AppleCare on all my Apple products. Sometimes it gets used, sometimes not, but I don’t have to worry about what repairs will cost if something fails within the three year period.
