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Test your backup strategy - pour wine into your computer

20 December 2007 1 comment

Retired member

Don't try this at home.

I'm sure there is a branch of mathematics or psychology than can adequately explain why disastrous events seem to occur more frequently than you might expect. So - the toast will seemingly always fall buttered side down - into the cat litter tray - and the full glass of wine when knocked will always follow a perfect trajectory towards the laptop and deposit its entire contents into it.

The latter is really, really vexing. I can tell you.

So - four weeks later the replacement MacBook Pro arrived and I was wondering how long it would take me to restore all that software and data - some 100 Gb of it. All of it copy protected via various means - dongles - registration codes etc.

So I switched the new Mac on. After the charming welcome video and choosing a language it said "Got any stuff you want putting on here from another Mac - or Time Machine backup".

That sounded promising I thought - so I plugged the external drive in with my backup on and left it to get on with it. One hour and fifty odd minutes later it was all back. Everything. Every single application worked. All the email, music, audio files. The whole kaboodle. It was like having my old machine back - but without the wine in it. Bang up to date. Apple engineers I salute you.

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Comments: (1)

Paul Penrose Head of Research at Finextra

20 December 2007

Sod's Law is the distinctly unscientific phrase commonly used for explaining why the toast always lands buttered side down. The BBC pooh-poohs the idea and instead claims that the answer lies in simple physics. The full-glass-of-wine-in-the-laptop scenario is down to a combination of bad luck and poor risk management. Now, where did I leave that cup of tea...

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