Maybe you store your data on an external drive. Tech companies want you to put everything on the cloud, but I like to know where my data are. The problem is devices are now slick. I use a MacBook Air. I do this because it was the only Mac I could afford at the time and it came with limited storage space. The solution is to buy an external drive, just like the old days. My external terabyte drive is a WD Elements drive. The problem is both of these devices are so sleek they’re slippery. Since my Mac’s not young any more each morning I connect my Elements drive to let it back up my data. It takes a while and when I need to move and put the laptop down, the external drive slips across the laptop. Then one time it fell.
The fall wasn’t far, maybe two inches. It was enough, however, to lose hundred and hundreds of hours of work. The disk failed. Two slippery surfaces that looked so sleek led to the loss of so many hours of work that I want to weep. There’s no way to get the disk recognized again. Even the manufacturer seems to indicate that one such temporary slip is fatal to data. Or at least to disk drives. I think of all the futuristic shows I’ve watched where nothing has a square edge. Everything is rounded and smooth. I bet they store their data in a cloud, or maybe they call it a galaxy. One thing’s for sure, they don’t try to stick a slippery disk drive on top of a slippery computer. Otherwise this future would never happen.
The problem here is when my computer began to complain of feeling too full, I transferred much of my data to this now failed drive. That was the only place it existed since I can’t afford multiple drives. Now I’m guessing I’ll need to pay a data recovery firm to recover all those files that represent most of my non-work life for the better part of nearly two decades. Is it square to admit missing angular surfaces that could be stacked with impunity? Think of that classic design known as a “book.” Great data storage. Fairly easy data retrieval. If one falls off the stack, it doesn’t break. So at work they wonder why editors don’t get behind ebooks. I’m happier with my information right where I know I put it. With right angles, and boxy looks, and data precisely where I left them.
