IRREPLACEABLE: Silicon Valley historians saddened over loss of Hewlett Packard archive in fire.

More than 100 boxes containing letters and other documents from Hewlett-Packard founders William Hewlett and David Packard were incinerated when the Tubbs Fire tore through one building on the campus of Keysight Technologies headquarters in Santa Rosa.

Corporate historians say the loss goes far beyond the estimated $2 million value of the collection. That’s because it contained thousands of pages of history documenting the firsthand thoughts and strategies of the two tech pioneers who formed the electronics company in Palo Alto.

“It’s heartbreaking,” said Karen Lewis, a former HP archivist who pored through each of those boxes in the 1980s, cataloging each document to help preserve that rich record for future researchers and historians.

While it isn’t a perfect solution, and daunting project to start, make a digital archive of all your records, photos, etc. You’d be amazed at what you can fit on an inexpensive external hard drive of just a few terabytes, kept in a safe deposit box or at a family member’s house.