Once bitten, twice shy

Oh, do I know the agony this woman was going through! The woman, a master's student, stored her thesis on a jump drive but hadn't backed it up anywhere else and a thief stole her purse where she was keeping the drive. She got it back by asking herself what the thief would've done and scrounging through a dumpster until she found it.

I know her agony. I've had entire pieces of work disappear on me - from the last two hours of typing because I haven't hit 'save' and the computer crashes, to losing an entire paper revision in undergrad (at 2 am, of course!) I've gotten smart since then, maybe even a bit obsessive. Although I don't like taking the time to back stuff up, I do it at least every couple of months or less, depending on how much work I'm producing at the time. I've even worried about a fire and keep an older set of backups elsewhere so that I can recuperate the majority of my work in case my computer goes up in smoke.

I am thinking of getting one of those jump drives, or 'thumbs' though for the dissertation stage, so that I can put everything in one place and have access to my notes etc. anywhere that I go. They do look awful handy, and they're not too expensive. I suppose there is a danger of losing it, but if I've backed up on the hard drive as well, it should be minimal I would think. The idea is growing on me, that's for sure.