Back it up

My hard drive just crashed, completely unexpectedly. I have a high-end MacBook Pro that I only bought in 2011, so it was well under the typical 5-year life of most spinning drives. I learned two lessons from this experience:

1. Get the Apple Care. If you're buying Apple, it's one of the best add-on purchases you'll make. It gives you three years of protection (most companies only give you two), and it's only a fraction of the cost of your entire machine. The amount you spend will definitely be justified by your peace of mind. Apple replaced everything for free--and did it all over the weekend (I went in on Saturday and was out by Monday. The lag was because I had customized hardware). Very fast and efficient.
2. Back up your devices. While waiting in line to pick up my laptop, I stood behind an older gentleman who was obviously distraught after losing data on his phone--probably in the form of non-replaceable pictures of his grandkids. Unfortunately, there isn't much you can do after the fact, so prevention is the only way to go. Get a large external drive, something like the 3 TB Seagate drive I have (on sale, it's just over $100--definitely worth the hours of time you'd spend rewriting all your papers). If it's this big, you can also use it to store any pictures and music and movies that don't fit on your machine. Make sure you set it up to remind you to back it up every 10 days or so, or you'll forget and will have wasted the $100.

Do it. You won't regret it.

And to help you remember, I've included this wonderful song: