Backing Up to the Cloud and More

A few days ago a friend asked me how I backup my computer files and I realized its a subject other people might be interested in. Everyone should have some sort of backup and if you aren’t backing up your files then you should get on it asap. My setup is a bit complicated just because I’m extra safe and super paranoid about hard drives failing and files getting deleted. So, I currently have all my data backed up to the following:

In my house:
2 x 1TB External Hard Drives
10TB Synology 5-Bay Server (pictured above)

Cloud Storage:
Apple iCloud
Amazon Glacier
Microsoft OneDrive

For those of you who don’t know what Cloud storage is, it’s basically storage over the internet.

Home Backup
First just to give you an idea of what I’m doing at home in terms of backing up. I have two Macs, my main workstation which is an iMac, and my MacBook Pro laptop which I use mostly for browsing the web and working on client designs every now and then. I don’t backup my laptop since I don’t save any files on it but my iMac on the other hand gets backed up daily onto two external hard drives. Why two? Because in case one drive fails, I have a backup drive. What doesn’t get backed up onto this hard drive are my clients design files. I do freelance branding work and all my clients files are stored on my 5-bay server. The reason for this is so I could access them from both my computers at home and also access the files from anywhere over internet (my server is connected online). The server has 5 drives but 1 drive is a safety net, so in case one drive fails on the server, the 5th one saves the day and I don’t lose any of my clients work. So when it comes to backing up locally at home I’m pretty much doing ok, but I also feel a lot more comfortable knowing all my important files are also saved to the Cloud.

Apple iCloud
The only important files my iMac has is my iPhoto library that contains nearly half a million photos. Basically nearly all the photos I’ve ever taken since my first digital camera. Because I’m pretty paranoid about losing the photos, other than the two hard drives the photos get backed up onto daily, I also back my photos onto Apple’s iCloud. That way in case my house burns down, I still have access to my photos. The reason I am using iCloud and not another service is because its one of the few ways to retain the file structure of the image library. It’s also the easiest way of backing up my photos to the Cloud.

Amazon Glacier
Now another thing you should know about me, I hate deleting files, I have nearly every file I’ve created or downloaded since the late 90s. I guess I’m a digital hoarder of a sort. I don’t have any use for these files anymore other than for nostalgic reasons and so these files are located on my home server which I can access anytime I’m looking for anything specific. Just to be safe I’ve also backed up these files onto the Cloud. They aren’t files that get updated and they aren’t files that I need access to frequently so I’m using Amazon’s Glacier service to back them up into the Cloud. Amazon offer a number of Cloud options, Glacier is their cheapest one but comes with limitations like it takes 3-5 hours to retrieve a file from the Cloud. But since I only need to retrieve data in case of a server failure at home, that isn’t a big deal. How cheap is Amazon Glacier? $0.007 $0.004 per gigabyte per month, so around 100fils a month for 70GB.

Microsoft OneDrive
Finally, I use Google Drive to backup all my clients branding work. I have my home server setup to backup all my clients files onto the Cloud every 30 minutes. This has a number of benefits. For one it’s a safety measure, in case something happens to my server at home, my clients files are safe in the Cloud. The second benefit is in case of a power outage. Last year I faced a number of long power outages in my neighborhood and during one incident I was working on a clients project. I ended up having to push back a deadline (I never pushback deadlines) because my iMac switched off and so did my server so I didn’t have access to the files. If I had my files on OneDrive as well, I could have just gotten on my laptop, connected online and gotten access to my clients files and continued working on them. The reason I’m using OneDrive and not Google Drive for this is because I get 1TB of storage with my Microsoft Office monthly membership. I could use Google Drive, I have no personal preference they’re both great.

So what should you use?
I don’t think there is one solution that fits everyone, it really depends on what you want to do and what you want to backup. Mac users will probably find iCloud the most convenient but because it doesn’t give me much control I actually find iCloud super complicated to use. I barely understand how the whole iCloud photo sharing/backup system work and I’m constantly worried I’ll click on a wrong button and end up wiping out all my photos. So iCloud freaks me out that way.

Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive would probably be the easiest for majority of users. Everyone has a Gmail account so you already have Google Drive and if you’re legally using Microsoft Office, then you also already have OneDrive. You can use both these services like external hard drives where you just drag and drop folders and files onto them or use software to automatically backup your files daily or as often as you like onto them. At the very very very least, if you’re not backing your stuff onto the Cloud you should be backing up your files onto an external hard drive. It’s super easy to do, on Mac’s you just plug in a new empty hard drive and it will ask you if you want to use it as a backup drive, that’s how easy it is so there is no reason why you shouldn’t be backing up your files.

Let me know if you have any questions.