I will now relate to you exactly why multiple backups is SUCH A GOOD IDEA:

Back in January, I was feeling like my desktops were cluttered, and decided to clean house a bit. I created a backup drive using my LaCie 30GB PocketDrive, and transferred all my files to it.

I was extremely busy, and did not get a chance to get any but a few files (my Eudora folder, for instance… 200MB of email) off it at the time. About a week goes by, and I sit back down to finish the process… and the hard drive stops working.

Six YEARS worth of data, gone. 12GB of personal images. It’s my own damn fault for relying on one drive, but it still hurts a lot. Hoping it was just the bus (the firewire ports et cetera… the stuff that makes your drive something more than an internal drive stuffed in an enclosure), I sent it to LaCie. They were very cool about the whole thing. Unfortunately, it turned out the drive itself had gone bad. They suggested DriveSavers, which I then sought out. They are going to be sending me dvds of the data… for somewhere between $500 and $2700 (they won’t narrow the estimate more than that).

This is going to be a very painful process, I can already tell. I’ve sent a request to DriveSavers that if it looks like it is going to spend more than $1000, then to contact me… I may have to tell them to stop the process at that point. I’m making a “Donate to PayPal” link at the bottom of the page… if anyone is willing help me defray the costs (whether out of the kindness of your heart, or because by doing so will ensure that I’ll have that data to use for content for this site), I’d really appreciate it.