Thanks to Notebooks.com, we are part of a contest where we will be giving away not one, but two Seagate external hard drives to one lucky winner. The winner of this contest will get their choice of either a FreeAgent Desk 1TB or FreeAgent Desk for Mac 1TB. That same winner will also get to choose either a 500GB FreeAgent Go or 500GB FreeAgent Go for Mac. Regardless of whether you are Mac or PC, if you win, you will have two great devices that can be used to backup your data.

External drives are not typically fun to look at, but with the PC version of the Seagate FreeAgent Go you now have 10 different colors to choose from that will help you accessorize your laptop or computing space. The FreeAgent Go for Mac has a sleek and thin look that has been designed to be a perfect fit for your Mac. Below you can see a display of the colors available for the PC version of the Seagate FreeAgent Go.

Entering the contest is simple. Just respond to this topic with the answer to the following questions and I will pick a random winner from those who left a response before 11:59 PM PST on December 6. The questions are:

What is your current backup plan for your computer? What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted? How would this prize package help you?

For further chances to win this contest, please visit the other nine sites participating in the contest. Regardless of whether you plan on entering their contests, they are all excellent sites and are worth the visit.

• CrunchGear
• Bleeping Computer
• Notebooks.com
• GeeksToGo.com
• PlanetAMD64.com
• Gadgetell.com
• Paulstamatiou.com/
• Macenstein.com
• Digital Home Thoughts

Good luck and happy holidays!

What is your current backup plan for your computer?
the current backup plan for my computer is a third drive at the size of about 10 gigs, and is getting pretty full. the only problem with this is the fact that my music and all of my important job related info.

What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?
My most devastating loss of data would be my music. It has taken me YEARS to find and download all of my songs. I have not backed up that info yet.

How would this prize package help you?
I would actually buckle down and backup ALL of my important data on an EXTERNAL drive.
Hope I win!
Blessed Be!
Lord Canesh

My current backup situation is a mostly reliable External 500GB eSata I slapped together on my budget (massively in-debt college student).

Definitely losing my photography again. I was without a proper backup when I reimaged my laptop, and the surrogate corrupted 3,500 I shot in NYC as a sophomore. That was easily my best set too, it can't happen again.

Having a reliable setup with the proper amount of space to Vault my 35,000+ photographs I will need after school is what I need this prize for.

I have an extra hard drive on my computer and periodically i back up all my data. I have done this for a few years and I have had one hdd get fried. The most important data to me are my work files and my wife's pictures. If I lose either, I would be screwed.
Being able to have a reliable storing space would ensure that I will have a job and a place in bed.

I currently have my Mac's startup disk cloned with SuperDuper! to a FW external that is bootable just in case my startup disk crashes. I also have a couple more FW external drives that I use, one for use with Lightroom 2 and the other for backup of the photos. I also burn the RAW photos to DVD-R media.


Definitely losing my photos would impact me the most.


I would start by keeping more TIFF files along with more homemade videos on the HDD.

This seems great! I'll join
Q:What is your current backup plan for your computer?

A:I don't really have any back up plan other then burning some important pictures, chat logs, videos, etc on a 512 mb, but that's not really useful.

Q:What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?

A:Chat logs (they are actually really important to me , pictures (I have lost more then a few IMPORTANT pictures already), and most of all, my music since I have about 37 gigs worth of music right now.

Q:How would this prize package help you?

A:It would be very useful to back up important files that I listed above.

1. What is your current backup plan for your computer?
2. What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?
3. How would this prize package help you?

1. My current backup plan consists of copying folders to an external (320GB) drive every week or so.
2. The most devastating loss for me would be My Documents.
3. This prize package would allow me to make backups of all my systems on a regular basis.

What is your current backup plan for your computer?
- Maxtor OneTouch III Mini 160GB (my company own it)
- iPod Video 30GB (it's mine)

What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?
- My private & family photograph, it's a life time collection
- My Music, it's also take years to collect it

How would this prize package help you?
- With 1TB I don't need my company's Maxtor OneTouch anymore to backup my music files

What is your current backup plan for your computer?

I currently have a 2nd internal drive which has all my music/videos/pictures stored on, important documents get emailed to a private email account for extra backup + access anywhere.

What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?

If i lost my photo's this would be the most devastating, music can be bought again (mind i wouldn't be happy losing 30-40Gb of it) and emails are always left on the servers but if i lost all the photos of family occasions, college days, days/nights out with friends i would be distraught.

How would this prize package help you?

With external drives of this size i would be able to run back-ups each week from both computers and the laptop to make sure if the worse did happen then i would still have all my stuff. With a lil' one on the way in a 8weeks this is something i will must arrange to have for all those pictures and videos.
Also it would help to have a 1TB drive to store music and pictures externally so these can also be accessed via all computers on the network.

What is your current backup plan for your computer?

Every month (or so)

1. Image computer back - up to external hard drive <-- (Acronis);
2. Back - up Firefox bookmarks <-- Moz backup;
3. Import my Firefox bookmarks in Opera as an alternative browser;
4. Back-up specific files (pictures, music, e-mails, text) on external hard drive.

What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?

1. Pictures
2. Music
3. Bookmarks

How would this prize package help you?

1. More back-ups e.g. on a weekly basis;
2. Double back-up of pictures, music and bookmarks.

P.S. Thanks for offering us this opportunity to win something.

What is your current backup plan for your computer?

I don't have a plan, I just back up stuff I think is important every couple of months


What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?

The photos I have not yet backed up


How would this prize package help you?

I would have a large enough drive to do a real backup with a real backup program, my current drive isn't big enough

I've been checking into getting a larger external drive for a while, but haven't decided which drive to get.

What is your current backup plan for your computer?
I Have 4 RW DVD discs that i use to perform a system backup every 2 weeks or so, All the pictures onto three of the discs, and XP backed up onto the other.

What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?
All Family pictures as there is almost 13GB of memories that would be lost

How would this prize package help you?
It would help me by being able to backup ALL pictures, and my OS, and other collections of things, such as music, videos, and my DVD rips

What is your current backup plan for your computer?
What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?
How would this prize package help you?

1) At the moment I am backing up to DVD.
2) The most devestaing loss would be my family pictures as they are irreplaceable.
3) It would help me to place my important files, backed up in one safe location.

What is your current backup plan for your computer?

I have a 300GB Maxstor external hard drive which is almost maxed out. I also use the 50GB Backup D drive on my computer which is also almost maxed out. I either have to delete stuff to make more room or rely on 4.7GB RW DVD's.


What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?

My films, my photos and my music which have taken me years to compile and process.


How would this prize package help you?

I would have enough external storage not to have to delete existing files to create space and to use my D drive for it's intended purpose of backing up the files I use on a day to day on my C drive. I would also have more storage for future films, photos and music. Especially photos and films, as I am hoping soon to be a grandfather twice over. I need a further external hard drive but cannot afford to purchase another as I have recently lost my job.

My main system is a Acer Aspire and they provide a utility to backup to a logical partition on the only disk. They provide no means of redirecting that backup so I use it to keep a single backup copy that I keep relatively current.

Since the above is inadequate, I have Acronis True Image that I use to create bootable DVDs as well as regular (weekly) backups to my NAS drives.

I also have a laptop (Dell) that I backup to the NAS drives with Windows Backup.

I am a digital photo nut and have a few thousand pictures that I would very much regret the loss of. They exist anywhere in the chain from camera(s), to laptop while on the road, to main system for editing, to CD or DVD as a permanent location. The entire collection is maintained on the NAS drives as well.

The most valuable aspect in the prise is the additional storage that it would offer to my laptop both on the road and at home. The laptop has very limited storage (80 Gb) space which means I am unable to use it as freely as I would like.

Oy. My backup plan is to hope that if the hdd fails, someone else knows how to retrieve information off of it. That sounds pretty bad, now that I write it out. It's on my mind often, but being in college means I operate pretty close to the edge. The worse thing about it, is that I have my pictures of my kids there, kind of scattered around. ( And the oldest is not with us anymore!) So, even if I don't win, I can see I need to take this seriously. I'll take this as a warning, thanks!

1. What is your current backup plan for your computer ?

Answer :- I have a Seagate 40GB portable external HDD (ST940801U2-RK).I know it's too small for backing up my main HDD's data on it.So, i'm currently writing/backing up the data of my HDDs on blank DVD-Rs & the rest on this porable drive.

2. What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted ?

Answer :- It would be my emails & many text files which i'm keeping with me for years now.

3. How would this prize package help you ?

Answer :- This package would help me very nicely because i don't have a spacious external drive where i can back-up my data on.My 40 GB falls very short when i feel the need to back up 300+ GBs of data which resides on my desktop drives.If i would have got this package, i wouldn't have to buy several DVD-Rs to back-up the rest of the data.I also wouldn't have to search for any specific file from those huge piles of DVDs when it's needed.

My current backup plan is non existant at the moment . The most devastating loss would be my parents business records. They own their own business and have spreadsheets and documents that can't be lost. Most of the documents they have a hard copy of too, but soMe are only on he computer. The hard drives would help my parents ( it would be their Christmas present) because I could help them back up all of their importAnt files as well as my and my brothers music ( a very large amount) my brother is also going to college nextyear so using the hard drvie to transferfiles to his laptop would be another use.


Good luck to all entrants and happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

1. My current backup plan is not too bad for my desktop. I have a backup of most the files I use but not a complete back up or image as I would like. My laptop does not currently have any backup solution since am out of hard drive space.

2. The most devastating loss would be pictures. My wife and I have taken many pictures over the last couple of years and if the laptop crashes...well.. ..I need to back it up.

3. The prize would allow me to create full images of both my PCs and save the day when one of the computers crash.

Good luck to all!

1. What is your current backup plan for your computer ?

Answer :- Ihave a WD 1tb drive which I use to do a full back up of both my desktop and laptop systems which also share some important files between them. I backup at least once per month or more often if I have downloaded/amended significant amounts of data.


2. What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted ?

Answer :- In priority, my financial control system (Money etc) plus some home made movie files.

3. How would this prize package help you ?

Answer :- I could get greater resilience by cycling disks. This would not only give greater hardware reassurance but also prevent virus creep and enable more frequent back-ups

What is your current backup plan for your computer?

I back up weekly to an external HD using Acronis True Image and backup MS Money every time I use it.


What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?

The MS Money data would most likely be impossible to reconstruct back over 15 years and my address book would both be very difficult to reconstruct. The music is replaceable, as are some of the photos.


How would this prize package help you?

Rather than backup repeatedly to one external HD, I would have additional HD's to use as backups.

Q1-What is your current backup plan for your computer?

A1-Really, nothing. I will backup any pictures or music to a dvd every once in a while, but that's it.



Q2-What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?

A2-Right now, it would be my wedding pictures. All photos from my wedding are on computer, and haven't got to back them up yet.



Q3-How would this prize package help you?

A2-I would have plenty of space to back up any and all photos that i take, and can get more music. Also, it would make it a lot easier to share photos with my family.

What is your current backup plan for your computer?

Current plan is a scheduled task that runs on Fridays that formats and external 20GB harddrive that I removed from an old
laptop and then copies my select parts of my school folder to that. [I am a design student, lots of vector graphics.]



What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?

Most devastating would be loss of some of my best works that I spent a lot of time on and that am quite proud of. ^^



How would this prize package help you?

Wooww, 1TB, I could not only properly backup my school stuff but could actually watch a few movies.

Cheers

What is your current backup plan for your computer?

Using Backup feature included in Windows Vista... New backup once a month... Files are copied to the local hard drive (around 110GB)...

What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?

Documents related to work and studies...

How would this prize package help you?

I haven't ever used external drives for a backup... I guess it's more secure... So I would probably make backup copies more often and would feel more secure... ..

Q: What is your current backup plan for your computer?

I usually backup my file to my 120gb and 80gb portable hard drives. I usually copy every important document and save it there.

Leaving my laptop an ample amount 110gb of free space.

Q: What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?

My research papers, pictures and my linux Vbox images.

Q: How would this prize package help you?

Well, I can save a lot of things in there. It is also easier to carry one harddrive than bringing two.

Mark

Thanks to BC for organising this giveaway

I may as well have a go



There's not much important stuff to back up as I have all the disks for my software. The things I do backup include pictures, work. The way I do this is by using first a USB stick and I also back up to disc (CD-R)



I would have to say pictures. As photo taking has moved from hard copy to digital storage, most of our family photos are now on my pc. If I were to lose this permanently (no backups) then it would mean a loss of valuable memories. Ok, memories can be generated by your mind but pictures do spark memories better.



An external hard drive would significantly help me mainly due to backup storage. Its much safer to have your images and work on 2 hard drives rather than the one. Another reason would be for a general hard drive space increase. I only have 40GB on this laptop, an external hard drive would therefore prove very useful.

What is the backup plan for your computer?

I have overall (In my Desktop PC) 2 S-ATA (Serial ATA) drives. One is my main Windows Drive (500GB) my Second drive is a small (20GB) backup drive. that backs up data every 5 mins. I find this useful, as i can get the data, when i need it.

What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?

I had a HD failure about 6 Months ago on my Desktop, and i couldn't get my School work, Apps, and Personal Info, having re-installing Windows i'd lost everything. But, i never had my backup drive until about 2 Weeks later.

How would this prize package help you?

This would help me have a better drive so i can back more stuff up. My 20GB is currently at 19.4GBs and is nearly full, so if i did have a HD failure, i wouldn't be able to get ALL of my data back, and most is for school and info (Such as Logins, Personal Info etc.) so having a bigger drive, would help me a "lot of a bunch" More.


Big thanks to Grinler for posting the topic and BleepingComputer for having this contest!!

1. What is your current backup plan for your computer?
I have 3 Drives in RAID 5
2.What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?
Hmm, I would have to say all my school work, saved games, custom made programs... Erm... Registry? Oh! And my site is hosted off my compy.
3.How would this prize package help you?
You never can have too much backup, I would back up my important files.

I have a small external drive that I use now. I would probably give the other drives to my daughter so that she can have a back up plan at college. I think the worst thing to lose is our picture files, because it has already happened to us once. That was depressing!

What is your current backup plan for your computer?
At present I just use Erunt whenever changing settings or installing a program which I may want to remove if it doesn't do what I hoped it would , and save my System settings with a backup program I picked up for free from somewhere . I'd like to do my system settings weekly but always seems to be fortnightly or longer . Any media , Video , Music , Audio I try to get onto a CD-RW or ROM , I haven't graduated to a DVD burner as yet . Also tempory storage on USB flash drives .
What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?
Honestly I think my notes that I take constantly about Computer maintenance and Fixes which go back over six years or more . Irreplaceable information for a Technician and Malware fighter . Plus Bookmarks . All Bookmarks and regularly used notes I keep in the 'Cloud' .
How would this prize package help you?
I could get a good nights sleep and stop having heart palpitations

Hello

Don't know if I qualify but.... (EDIT: Are staff eligible?)

What is your current backup plan for your computer?
I use a disk imaging program, Acronis True Image to an external disk... but that disk is not large enough to be an effective backup. A large amount of data is in unprotected areas. (Most notably all of my Virtual Machines)
What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?
Family vacation pictures going back to 2001. (But this data is currently backed up) Outside of that, it'd have to be my Virtual Machines.
How would this prize package help you?
I would be able to back up all, rather than some, of my data. (Most importantly the VMs)

Billy3

What is your current backup plan for your computer? What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted? How would this prize package help you?



1.Well if you really want to laugh at the answer to the 1st question I'll tell

you.I would freak out at first, and then run around in circles in the lounge room

postulating, "what am I gonna do, what am I gonna do"! Then I would jump in my 500$

car and drive 28 kilometers to the nearest 'elcheapo' auto electonics store that sells

cheap discs, at which point I would purchase 50 generic brand dvds and 50 generic brand

cds and rush back home via the pharmacy where I would purchase some over the

counter 'high strength' caffeine tablets and sit at home for 72 hours in 40 degree heat,

unscrew the sides of my computer, place a fan [on 3] on the floor aimed directly at the

cpu, and god dam burn that 160 gigs of data to disc until I was done, and then probably

collapse with relief.


2. I have all my music on hard disc, so no loss there. My email is

external so that wouldn't be affected. But yeah, those jpegs are so memory hungry and

they just sit there, so if they went, it would be pretty devastating as "reproducing the past

is tricky". And I have a lot of them, and home movies/kids etc. But what would really erk

me off is that cause I am on dial up, it can take hours to download big apps like itunes

etc. The overnight sessions I've had and the endless hours I've waited to install big apps,

days, weeks, years of waiting, waiting for downloads to complete. Now to have all that

time and effort just go up in 'zzzzfffzzit'................................well that's got to hurt!!



3. Well these prize items sound like luxuries to me. So as we all

know - luxury increases your quality of life, stress is markedly reduced, so I guess if I

won, I would actually live longer. But really, I would be able to download and or 'get'

HUGE apps and then have them sitting there for use by myself, friends and family. I

could like turn into a 'resource'! Wow, it's exciting just thinking about it. Also at long last I

would have a home for all my vob files which are numerous and like the jpegs, are

hungry memory eaters. AVI's are good but they still take up space. I spose I could chuck

all my cds on it as well, which would be a nice backup. Just think, all those apps in 1

place, fat photo editing apps, home music studio apps, home video editing suites, I mean

you could start up an independent TV station with that kind of power!



4. And did I hear something about an apple laptop? Well as a uni

student it would be a great learning aid, allowing me to research data bases and

'compute' in the comfort of the outdoor environment. A laptop also has high portability

advantages [e.g. you're in a tute/lecture, the lecturer is boring and you can't hear

properly cause your up the back, so,.............. you open your laptop, log on to say

HARVARD university, look up the corresponding course/lecture to the one your missing

and download the [free] mp3 or even better a AVI FILE of it on the wireless network, plug

in your headphones and just smile as your I.Q. increases at a dramatic rate, WHY?

Because you have a laptop! Also their are a number of privacy issues at uni that really

erk me. When 'one' has a laptop, one can say good-bye to people standing behind

watching your: log on passwords, private email details, assignments and private study

themes, structures, mechanisms and just plain data. I mean if they can see it they will

plagiarize you and relieve you of your creativity that that took you 2 months of blood

sweat and tears to formulate. Also lap tops add to your sex appeal, and that's

go to be a plus.Yeah,..high social status, sex appeal and privacy.............in my dreams.

What is your current backup plan for your computer?

Believe it or not, I have twenty-nine (yes, 29) 2 GB thumb drives that I "backup" to. Each one is marked for certain projects, files, folders, etc. I then "catalog" each drive and store them next to my computer for easy and quick access.

What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?

It would be the CAD drawings. Some are too big to store on my thumb drives so they are stored on my unit's internal 500GB HD. Right now, they take up about 179 gig of space. Next would have to be all the pictures that I have stored (about 2500). They include old photos of my family that I had scanned into digital images. Some of the actual photos are 60+ years old and I don't have the originals.


How would this prize package help you?

I could get rid of my "catalog" system, store everything on the external drive and make room for another computer that I would like to devote strictly to F@H.

Right now I use a small portable drive to backup the most important files on a daily basis. Then I have a 1TB drive to backup everything weekly and another 1TB as a redundant drive (backup drives fail too!). Winning the seagate drive would allow me to upgrade my aging drives and keep my photos, music, personal files... basically my life (I'm all digital...) from getting lost.

What is your current backup plan for your computer?

I currently back up most stuff to a networked hard drive. Any super important stuff is basically stuck on that and I sweat over it, trust me.


What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?

Hundreds of pictures, many that only exist in digital format, backups of home videos (all clean!! Holidays and so on) and a copy of the website I'm trying to make a go of. It's a community resource for disability issues and will soon be up and running fingers crossed.

How would this prize package help you?

Many ways.

A secure non-networked storage facility for the website as it's developed (either using the old drive or a new one)

A secure back-up for my OS

Same for photo's/videos.

A transport device for any important documents - marketing plans, presentations, general business docs.

Secure storage for same.

Less important but very convenient for portable video storage to allow longer and better organised filming sessions. Would make edits much easier.


And of course it would look fantastic!! All sleek, shiny and metallic.....none of this dull plastic rubbish I have to look at currently. My friends would come round just to gaze admiringly at their sophisticated gadgety goodness.

What is your current backup plan for your computer?
Currently I do Windows Backups and a Windows Complete PC backup respectively my two computers a Dell Dimension 8300 and Dell 1500 to a 300 GB Lacie External brick every two weeks.

What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?

For me the most devastating would of course be the thousands pictures I have taken of/with family and friends and places I have been to and the gigabytes of video I have recorded. That is something I just cannot get back if I were to lose them all, its gone, I can't recreate that, I can't go back in time and even if I could it would be a lot of work to go retake myself in photos and videos. Music I can rip back to my hard disk, documents, not so detrimental but still would be a hurtful lost, but its the digital content that matters most and thats Pictures and Videos.

How would this prize package help you?

Winning one of these would be a significant upgrade right now, here's why:
On my Dell Dimension 8300 250 GB disk its partitioned:
C: Primary disk - Windows XP Professional 187 GB with 55.4 GBs of free space
F: WINNT - running Windows 7 Ultimate 8.16 free of 25.0 GB
I: NT6SRV - running WIndows Server 2008 Standard 6.99 GB free of 20.6 GB

My backup strategy for this computer is pretty much non-existent right now. I have the pictures, documents, software programs, pictures and tonnes of music copied on the external in addition to the my Complete PC backup for the Dell Inspiron 1500 on that same external drive, space has become cramped. I would love to be able do a Complete PC backup of the desktop to save myself the trouble of having to reinstall the operating systems (please note plural) if the system were to go south. I also have about 10 Virtual PC .VHD files in my documents on C:, these too are not so detrimental, but man, recreating back everything would be a chore.

The Dell Inspiron 1500 currently has a 160 GB drive with 45 GBs of free disk space left, as I said, its backed up to the Lacie, total space remaining - 120 GBs. This prize package is about scalability and future growth. As my data set increases in size, so will the amount of storage needed to back it up. The 1 TB would provide ample space to satisfy my data archive needs. Plus, if I do win, I can give my 300 GB Lacie to my brother and give the 500GB FreeAgent Go to my other brother, spreading the holiday cheer and keeping the memories we create from it safe.

Thanks

What is your current backup plan for your computer? --- BadBadBad. Only backup a small portion of my data (HTML pages) to a USB stick, and that, only when I think of it.

What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted? --- Definitely, my 80 GB of precious (and semi-precious) photography.

How would this prize package help you? --- I'd be able to Sleep better at night (knowing not only my photos, but EVERYTHING was backed up as needed and on time). Thanks

What is your current backup plan for your computer?
I only have web data storage as a backup, addiotional i have a backup of my files on a special disk on my office...

What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?
My most devastating loss of data already occurs, i lost my memories from the last years, i have to say the best years of my life since i became a father a year and a half ago!!!!, Every kid should come with several backup disks for their parents, so we can have their pictures in a save place!!! Thats my case!!!!

How would this prize package help you?
This will help me a lot, with the ton of pictures, videos, music and documents that i already have.... i will use them first to transport my data to other devices and computers, then i'll be great to have a decent disk for time machine and a decent disk to free space of my next laptop (since most of them has small hard drives).

What is your current backup plan for your computer?
i have no special backup plan on my computer but i do back up my pictures on DVD's. other than that i got no backups of anything else on my computer!

What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?
i would be absolutely devastated if i lost my pictures. thousands of pictures dating back almost 7-8 years would be gone!

How would this prize package help you?
would be awesome to have this as a can keep my valuable data on it separate to my computer system and i could transport it between my laptop and my desktop

What is your current backup plan for your computer?

I have all my useful, static files and folders on CD. I have also copied these to a friend - who's a programmer

What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?


My enormous collection of photographs of my son. And my music.

How would this prize package help you?

It looks nicer than CD jewel cases and would save me an embarrassed call to my mate - the programmer ;)

My current backup plan... I don't really have an external drive so I use a ADrive as my 50GB backup service. My hard drive is only 65GB, so there's no problem in uploading everything on there. For the things that're >1GB I just burn onto a DVD. Most of my data are also online on MediaFire and MegaUpload, so there's very little that I can't replace by redownloading.

My most devastating loss would be my subtitles and videos. I add subtitles to various videos ranging anywhere from the 2008 Olympics Beijing Welcomes You promo video to the Open Yale courses to my horrible school project videos. They take immense amounts of time to time, typeset, and encode. The karaoke effects are the pride and honor of every subber, and shows how experienced they are. If I lost all the automation scripts I had, I would feel quite suicidal.

And lol even the small 500GB external drive is more than 7x larger than my internal laptop hard drive. For one, no more worries that I'd run out of hard drive space doing my latest video experiments. I can also bring my laptop data where ever I go, meaning a simple plug into another computer brings me access to my computer, instead of me bringing the actual laptop (I don't have remote access enabled). I also have more room to experiment on videos and audio.

What is your current backup plan for your computer?
My Current Backup Plan for my computer is a simple little program that I found called HDCopy....It is supposed to make an identical copy of your hard drive, system files and all, but when I have tried to set the back up drive as the master (so that I can re copy everything back to a new drive), it never works. Currently as a sophomore in high school, I am like pretty much all other teenagers,BROKE!!!....So between car maintenance, gas, and other random things, being a soccer ref part time, and a public bagger part time will not cover all that, and a decent backup utility....


What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?
Well, sadly this has happened to me multiple times so far....I have lost everything completely, due to lack of good utilities, and stupid decisions on my part. I did buy a 100 GB external, for like $35, but a week later, I plug it into my usb, and It makes clicking noises, and when I call the manufacturer....it is dead...so they send me another one, and with the crappy quality it is it fails too...so far, with the crappy quality that I am able to afford (cause my parents refuse to spot me a few bucks...well a lotta bucks....) I have had 3 dead externals, totally just because of defects, and only one main drive failure...The data that I backed up onto my externals, before doing something like trying to dual boot with linux, and windows dies on the externals, and then when I try to receive it, I realize...well...time to start from scratch again...new os, new files, reinstalling every setting and program that I had before...


How would this prize package help you?
Well, I hope that it would supply me with a drive without defective sectors, that I would be able to save all of my data onto...without loosing it the next day..without breaking my bank....

Thanks to anyone who even reads this...I know its long....sorry

Current backup plan is supposed to be back up to DVDs every 3 months or so. But we all know how diligent we can be with that. It would be terrible to loose everything, especially music, photos and other important documents. A drive bundle would help be more diligent with backups.

What is your current backup plan for your computer?

I dont have another hard drive where i can backup data. Every 1 month or so i make a backup on CD/DVD-R and i will finish the backup with 5 or more DVD-R plus the games that usually take one 4.7GB DVD-R, every month.

What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?

The most devastating loss of data for me would be Pictures or Graphics that i make and they took me a lot of time, Important e-mails of school and my father's emails of work, the software that i program with Visual Studio and softwares that are rare to find.

How would this prize package help you?

This prize would help me because i dont have another hard drive where to backup data and once my hard drive failed, and i dont want to happen again without any backups.

Good Luck everyone

My current backup plan for my computer is... backing up selective files via Dropbox. All my photos get uploaded to Flickr and burned onto DVD. I'd loose all my FLAC encoded music if my HD died. A 1TB drive would allow me to have a secondary copy of all my data.

What is your current backup plan for your computer?

We use a 1 TB external at the office, it gets updated weekly for backup in case we have a sudden loss of data, more important information is also stored on CD's. I also use a 500 GB for my personal backup data, it is updated everyday, if I have something critical that needs to be backed up, I do not hesitate, it is copied that night, I keep pictures on the computer, 500 GB, and jump drives.

What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted?


My office setup:

1. 9-1-1 emergency logs/access information for remote control/rolodex information/troubleshooting logs/etc
2. Timesheets
3. 9-1-1 programs, (such as power 911)

My home setup:
1. Pictures of my son
2. My E-Books
3. Games ( i would hate to reinstall them all lol)

How would this prize package help you?

Of course this would help with the safety of backing up files.

It would also however help with my work, we could always use more space to keep specific information for our 9-1-1 PSAPs.

For entertainment purposes I could also use this for storing movies and music and also partitioning a portion for my PS3.

Probably the most important thing I would use this for is the movies and pictures of my son, and than protecting the community by keeping all the information for troubleshooting and maintaining of the 9-1-1 equipment.




This is a awesome contest you have going on here, I do enjoy seeing what other people would do with the prize if given the chance.

What is your current backup plan for your computer? What would be the most devastating loss of data (ie. pictures, email, music, etc) for you, if your hard drive failed or the data was deleted? How would this prize package help you?

Actually I use flash USB Drives to keep some important photos safe, but I don't have the rest of my hard drive backed up . Probably I would be very upset if I lost my photos :/

If I won the hard drive, I could make sure that all my important photos and videos never got lost!

I’ve definitely lost some data before, back in the days when I did CD-R backups. Now I backup all important files to an external hard drive automatically using SyncBack, and have most (if not all) text files in the cloud with Google Docs. Keep copies of all my photos on Picasa Web Albums, videos on Youtube or Google Video, and for random other files I’ve tried online storage like box.net, and that and similar sites seem to work decently as well.

The most devastating loss of data would be my music and videos, because I have so much that I don't have space for them all on my computer, so I only have them on my backup drive. The extra hard drives would be awesome in backing up all that music and video. I haven't bought an extra backup drive because in the long run, those files aren't crucial to me, but they do bring just a little bit more joy to my life, and that's something I'd rather not lose.

I have a 350G external hard drive, but I don't get to use it much as my roommate has permanently borrowed it.



Mostly I have a lot of art work I have done on the computer. I use programs to write musical notations for songs I've composed which is almost all I have to show for the last few years LOL. So yea.. loosing the data.. I guess I should bug my roommate to get his own eh? Other then that there's some music files from old bands such as henry cow that is no longer available by ordering on line or @ local music shops. And I haven't found any on peer sites like torrents so if I lost those yea.. I think that's it, everything else is replaceable but that's all i have that's irreplaceable.


Obviously It would free up space on drive C and be an insurance for the irreplaceable items I mentioned. It's also quite aesthetically pleasing, let's hope the girls notice it next time they are over?