I just helped a Vietnam Veteran find some misplaced photos. It was our honor to sit down with him and help unravel where his photos were at no charge. He had been to a reunion in Alabama for his Seawolf brother-in-arms and had taken once-in-a-lifetime photos of the event as the official photographer. He took over 600 photos.
He was a super nice guy and extremely grateful for the help. He ran down to Donut Shack and brought us a dozen donuts to thank us for the help!
So, there are a few great lessons here.
1. When importing photos from your camera, force Time Machine to run to ensure your new data is also backed up and archived in Time Machine. This way, if something goes wrong, you can undo it.
2. Don’t erase your SD cards until your data is on your Mac and the Time Machine has been run. SD Cards are so cheap it makes sense not to erase them until the data has been backed up multiple ways!
3. Have a process to follow when handling data importing so you can track what’s happened if something goes wrong, and don’t let the import process “erase” your SD card as part of the import!
4. Have a modern and tested Time Machine drive. Don’t rely on low-quality drives that have already lived a hot and harrowing life of running as your Time Machine drive. Backup hard drives should never be used for more than 5-years, and it’s not a bad idea to replace them when you see them on sale for Black Friday just because you can never have too many backups!
I recorded a mini-podcast episode about how new Macs have non-removable hard drives and why Time Machine is so important.
It’s quick (about 10 minutes), and you can listen to my best radio voice explain some worst-case scenarios for data loss that a few MacMedics customers have encountered this year. If you need some motivation to start a backup plan or it’s time to check in on yours to see if it’s working, this is for you! Also, I am now recommending a minimum of at least TWO backup systems for all of my customers.
https://macmedics.com/time-machine/https://macmedics.com/time-machine/
Here are a few of my other posts about the same topic for some light reading:
1. https://macmedics.com/i-am-so-happy-and-pleased-with-the-customer-service-i-received-from-dana-the-owner/
2. https://macmedics.com/you-can-never-have-too-many-backups-2/
As always, if you need help with Time Machine, you can stop by Severna Park or Lanham and buy a hard drive (or bring your own blank one), and we’ll configure it for you for FREE!