Always Keep a Backup of any CC that you download...

in a separate location other than your active games folder that you run Sims 3 from.

You never know when you have to purge your active games folder thanks to some bad cc running around out there. It should be standard operating procedure for games that you employ custom content and mods for.

Thanks to the Arezzo cabinet, I ended up recently having to purge my active games folder including all the cc that was in there. I was luckily able to recover my games thanks to having a backup folder filled with backup copies of every cc that I have downloaded since getting this computer.

I also plan to dump a copy of my backup folder onto a portable SSD drive that I will back up every three months since I will have downloaded more custom content by that time.

DO NOT, it bears repeating, DO NOT have your active games folder be the ONLY repository for your Sims 3 custom content and mods. With custom content creators taking their ball and going home and yanking their cc off the internet, sometimes having an external SSD backup of ALL your downloaded custom content is the only gameplan that you can do.