Sum of memories

[mousey]

I am in the process of getting a new computer - at work we had a Christmas clear out and I've inherited 7 computers, 2 mac's which are 15+ year old [I've never gotten used to mac's], and 5 pc's, 2 of which don't work. A couple of the ones that work are going to become the new home computers.

A good while ago I got an external hard drive to put all my stuff onto so when I change computers it's just a case of unplugging the hard drive and plugging it into the new computer - no having to transfer files etc.

I have looked at everything I have - photos, documents, videos - the sum of my *documented* life and memories comes to 182 gb. - I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Sorry for the non-bushcrafty post

 

[sandbender]

I am in the process of getting a new computer - at work we had a Christmas clear out and I've inherited 7 computers, 2 mac's which are 15+ year old [I've never gotten used to mac's], and 5 pc's, 2 of which don't work. A couple of the ones that work are going to become the new home computers.

A good while ago I got an external hard drive to put all my stuff onto so when I change computers it's just a case of unplugging the hard drive and plugging it into the new computer - no having to transfer files etc.

I have looked at everything I have - photos, documents, videos - the sum of my *documented* life and memories comes to 182 gb. - I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Sorry for the non-bushcrafty post

I hope you are not relying on one single hard drive to store all of those memories?

My digital life currently sits at around 1.8 TB! But I have stuff in there from the Nineties or earlier.

The older Apple machines won't be good for much these days, however they are often sought after on ebay with some good prices being picked up for the right hardware.

XKCD

 

[John Fenna]

I have done pretty much the same as you - external hard drive as a back up/transfer unit in case of change of machine - but my memories are only 10.35 gb ... and that includes books I have written, photos etc etc!

 

[mousey]

I like that picture sandbender that is just how I feel [apart from the poetry].

I must say that a large portion of my early life isn't digitized and there are fairly large chunks while at college, uni and shortly afterwards where I hardly documented anything - no camera, little technology usage and a lot of traveling around - which I feel is a great shame as I can barely remember what I was doing last week let alone 15 odd year ago.

I did not know that about the mac's I'll have to find out more about that - a couple of quid is always welcome

 

[John Fenna]

Hmmm - I guess you guys save everything electronically ... much of my expedition work is saved as hard copy - photos and diaries - with a disk as back up.
I find I do not fully trust electrickery as a storage medium and looking at photos in albums is more pleasing for me than looking at them on screens.
I saves a lot of disk space as well!

 

[sandbender]

"...I find I do not fully trust electrickery as a storage medium and looking at photos in albums is more pleasing for me than looking at them on screens..."

There is much sense in that, all hard drives are going to fail, sometimes you might be able to get someone to recover your data, sometimes not.

With that said, a burst pipe or house fire could destroy all your hard copies too, an electronic version can be backed up to servers run by Amazon or Google for little or no money and can be burned to a disc and kept elsewhere.

When my father died I was left to sort through a huge amount of correspondence, photographs and paperwork both from him and my mother but also from my grandparents and great grandparents. As my grandfathers decedents live in several parts of Scotland, England, Hungary (me), Mexico and New Zealand and all of them had some interest or call on those things I took it upon myself to scan the lot and provide copies for everyone.

As daunting as that seemed I bought an HP sheet feed Scanjet scanner which made swift work of most of it.

 

[Macaroon]

It's all just a great big cyber filing cabinet full of ones and zeros, when all's said and done

 

[rik_uk3]

Hard drives will fail although they are a lot more reliable than they were a few years ago. Back up and back up the back ups...this is vital. I've been ripping my DVD collection to hard drives, not finished yet and I've already used around 6TB.