Unexpected Reboot

Just when you think you're right on schedule and perhaps even ahead of things something ugly happens... I had a first today and hopefully a last too. My LaCie Porsche drive started to act up again and I couldn't make backups, it would freak out after copying about 2Mb and give me a -36 error. I checked the external HD using Disk Utility and had to repair it twice. After the second time I tried to copy some folders and all of a sudden my screen went dark from top to bottom showing me a message that I instantly needed to reboot my Mac. I had no other choice then a reboot, risking losing all the files that were still in use by applications...

I never had this kind of system freeze before and normally a Mac doesn't need a reboot like this unless something serious is going on. I should learn to listen to my gut feeling because something similar happened a while ago when I was testing a web cam. It freaked out my Porsches back then and it did again today. I have no clue what's wrong with the cam but something must cause this FiWi problem. Sorry Christiaan, I know you'll read this. Jim told me something about the fact that this particular cam doesn't like other FiWi devices plugged in at the same time, I would have to read into that. It could also be the cable, but I'm just not sure and since I don't want to take any risks now I'm not gonna try until I have a proper backup of all my work which is on that one HD that was acting up today.

I have all my freelance work stored on that Porsche along with seven years of photography and several other important files, only about 210Gb altogether and that's just one Porsche, I have two... I wonder now if it would be good to have it all on DVD as well. I wonder how other designers manage this. How long do you keep your files on backups? For ever? Or can you delete it after some time and what happens if you get a crash and a client needs more prints of something that is no longer there? I think I'm getting slightly paranoid *hehe*. Nah, just curious... It does make me think about worse case scenarios though and I guess I should be prepared so I do need to look for an alternative. For now I'm fine, I didn't lose any data but it made me realise that I would have a serious problem if I would have.

Funny thing is that I did get an email in today from a client who asked me to order more business cards because they almost ran out. They have a B&B in Scotland, one of the most interesting B&Bs I've ever stayed at. They've built the whole place themselves, water was heated through geothermal energy, electricity was provided through solar panels, a wooden house with double-glazing and inside it had several levels: most of it was open-plan but each 'room' was on a different level so there were stairs everywhere... I had fresh baked Scottish soda bread in the morning straight from the Aga cooker [I so want one!] which also heated the house and yes a warm shower... He was a shepherd and had really cool stories to tell. It was a pleasure to design their business card. Amazing place and very nice people!

Anyway... my Saturday [and probably Sunday and Monday as well] will be a day of copying 210Gig from one Porsche to another and back, burning DVDs, while dreaming about fresh oven baked bread...