A couple of days ago I decided to restructure my file system and make the Podcast Asylum a top-level directory instead of a sub-directory of Author-izer. That meant that instead of going to C:\!Author-izer\Podcast Asylum\etc to find a file, I now go to C:\!Podcast Asylum\etc. I also relocated all of my podcast-related presentations from my C:\!Author-izer\Author-ized Appearances folder to C:\!Podcast Asylum\Podcasting Presentations.
(Oh, yeah—for anyone who might be wondering about the exclamation points, they’re there to force the folders to the top of the list in Windows Explorer, so I don’t have to scroll past other folders to look for them in alphabetical order. I believe this works in the Mac Finder, as well.)
Doing that helps me keep the different aspects of my business clear in my mind. (Yes, there’s a C:\!FileSlinger folder, too.) In the past couple of months I’ve overhauled the Podcast Asylum and created a short series of audio “Reports from the Asylum” as a contribution to the For Immediate Release podcast, so there’s now a lot more material there than there used to be. It’s easier for me to find things when I don’t have to go through as many subfolders, and when everything related to one topic is gathered together.
But whenever I create a new top-level folder instead of a subfolder in an existing directory, that means I have to revise my file backups. Before I made this change, both Karen’s Replicator and SyncBack Free automatically backed up all the Podcast Asylum files to my X drive (the 2.5 inch external FireWire/USB drive) and my D drive (my second internal hard disk) whenever they backed up the !Author-izer folder. So I had to go into Replicator and SyncBack and create new backup jobs (SyncBack calls them “profiles”) for the new !Podcast Asylum folder.
This took all of ten minutes, and a bit longer to run the backups the first time, and then another 15 minutes, max, to clean up the backup drives. (I removed duplicate files which were still lurking in the !Author-izer folder on X and D.) Then I dragged a copy over to the Z drive (my still-working-just-fine-for-me Maxtor Shared Storage II drive).
Updating a file backup like this isn’t usually difficult, but if you forget to do it, it could be months before you realize that some of your important files aren’t getting backed up. And the reason you discover it will probably be that you’re looking for the backup because the original is lost or corrupted.
In most cases, if you create a new subfolder of a directory that’s already getting backed up, and your backup software has “include subfolders” checked, you won’t need to change anything. So if, for instance, you include your “My Documents” folder in your backup, and every new folder you make goes somewhere in “My Documents,” that folder’s contents will get backed up. But it’s a good idea to check, just in case. Start up your backup software and take a look at the settings to make sure they include your new folder.
If they don’t, update them so they do. Then you can relax and let your automatic backups go to work.
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