And no, the answer is not "all of them".
But there is this one. I'll get to her in a minute.
I have an almost-complete master's thesis. Since I put the first word into Word, I have been paranoid about the possibility of losing it. What if my laptop gets stolen? What if my house burns down? What if there's a lightning strike that kills my computers?
You're talking about years of ongoing work. Painstaking research. Derivations, writing formulae in Equation Editor. Writing simulation software, exporting graphics, creating figure plates. Keeping track of excerpts and references.
At first, I simply kept periodic copies of the thesis work on ZIP disks. Then I moved to CD-RW. Then, since I was emailing copies to my advisor, I archived my sent mail for historical snapshots of various important files.
Finally, I decided that wasn't enough. I wasn't willing to take the risk that a direct nuclear strike against the midwest could destroy my thesis. No way, I didn't spend two years in class and more than that working part time on research and writing just to see it slip away in the blinding flash of canned sun.
So, I finally settled on a system that I felt confident in. A jumpdrive on a lanyard around my neck, containing all of my important and irreplacable thesis documents in a briefcase file. Synchronized copies of the briefcase on my laptop, my home computer, a research computer, and my thesis advisor's computer. Regular full backups of my laptop hard drive. Backups of the jumpdrive on CD-R. Zipped files periodically sent via email to another account so that I can use the Google and Yahoo email servers as off-site archives. Periodic storage on a server in Europe.
I've considered seeing if there is a server at an Antarctic research station, or perhaps on the space station, that is on-line with some room to spare, but I haven't gone that far yet. Currently, at any given moment, to destroy my thesis would require annihilating me, the university science hall, my home (1.5 miles away) including all of my backup CD-Rs, plus the Google and Yahoo server farms, plus servers in Canada and Germany.
In other words, short of a fully-nuclear World War III, there is virtually no way I can lose more than a few days worth of work on my thesis. And, in the event of a fully nuclear World War III, I doubt that I'd have much use for a thesis or a master's degree anyway.
Considering my significant precautions, I am baffled by people who do something as insanely stupid as keeping only one copy of their thesis. To me, this is equivalent to coating one's self in honey and poking a hibernating bear with a stick. Bearing that in mind, I read the following...and I actually feel a little pissed at the outcome. She deserved worse, and I wouldn't hire her to flip burgers on the night shift. If she treats her own work that carelessly, how does she treat the work she's paid to do?
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10551825/