I was thinking recently about how I view my phone and my tablet differently. Both are Android devices that I use to handle email, browse the web, and read. However, if I lost my tablet, I’d just order a new one (and get the benefits of a fresh battery and updated technology) whereas losing my phone would be much more painful. I came to characterize the difference as how much intrinsic value each device had, essentially no intrinsic value beyond the hardware itself.
My phone, by virtue of the irreplaceable data stored on it, has a fair bit of intrinsic value. Photos accumulate daily, personal settings build up over time, and while migration to a new phone is manageable when both devices are in hand, starting from scratch after a total loss is tedious.
In contrast, I use my tablet only to read (ebooks that are synchronized from the source as needed), to browse the web (where everything I see is in the cloud), and to read email (also in the cloud). I sometimes use Google Messages from my tablet but there is still no meaningful use of local storage.
My phone has intrinsic value because it holds unsynced data, settings, and personal history. My tablet has only extrinsic value; it enables things but losing it is almost a non-event. A friend once told me about having his Mac stolen. The thieves were wily enough not to turn it on in reach of Wi-Fi, so the device location service never helped recover it. But he bought a new computer, signed in, and his entire environment was restored to the new device. The effective backup of his lost device meant that it had essentially no intrinsic value.
This principle extends beyond mobile devices and cloud subscriptions. It’s the reason I maintain a dedicated backup server at home. Whether it’s cloud sync for a tablet or automated local snapshots for home computers, the goal is the same: to shift value away from fragile physical boxes and into resilient, recoverable systems and render the physical hardware readily replacable.
There are two kinds of people in the world:
- Those who have lost data
- Those who will lose data
An effective backup makes the next loss less painful than it would otherwise be.