The post New Way to Protect Against a Data Loss Nightmare appeared first on ProBlogger.
Photo by Cookie the Pom on Splash
How to backup your computer?
In the last month I have changed my view and wish I had done it sooner. In this article I will tell you why I got disconnected.
For years I used hard drives at home and then lost those drives at a relative's house. There are many problems with this.
Maybe you can communicate.
Photo by Lorenzo Herrera on Unsplash
So much information!
First, our backup size continues to grow as more photos, videos, and documents are created. While some can back up to the cloud, you can back up anywhere (iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox… you get the idea).
A few years ago I decided to use iCloud to back up all the photos, videos and other data on our phones, but I prefer to store all my computer data elsewhere (because iCloud is expensive and has a 2TB per account limit) . : Having everything in one place means I have to buy bigger hard drives every few years. And it's not just a string, I like to back it up.
The days when I could only back up to a 500GB drive...those days are long gone. Part of this is because digital camera sensors continue to get bigger (and thus their files take up more space), and we're creating larger files as our kids use more media at school and for entertainment.
Of course, even now we are building five (2 parents, 3 kids in our house) things that take up space. We have six active computers at home (our youngest will soon be seven when he starts high school), and our oldest is currently making short films as part of his studies. Each of us has 16 TB of files on our computer.
The hard drive is failing
Another problem with hard drives is that every few years one of them fails. So I don't buy new ones because they aren't big enough, but to replace damaged ones. So, everything got mixed up. I'm not very tech savvy so it took a long time to set up a backup system and I tried to make sure the hard drives were big enough and then tried to make a backup and transfer it to my family's house...ahrrgh!
A few years ago I was lying awake at night wondering if all our photos were okay when there was a fire and an important record was broken.
The anxiety is real.
Photographed by Vincent Botha on Unsplash
Cloud solutions
I asked if cloud backup was a solution and started researching options. This week I decided to back up one of my computers to the cloud to see how long it would take and how difficult it would be.
I chose Backblaze as my test service. All the reviews I read said they were easy to use, had a free trial, and best of all, were cheap (only $7 a month with unlimited data). I think it's good!
You can see what they offer here: https://problo.gr/Backblaze
Note: This is an affiliate link, which means I get a commission if you choose to buy from my link for free, but I'm already a paying customer. The commission is 70 cents when you sign up, so I don't expect to get rich from this.
I will tell you how I discovered the process.
It was very easy!
Backup process
You literally install the app on your computer, give it access to your files, and before you know it, it's at work backing up your files. If you want, you can tell it not to back up parts of your computer, but as I mentioned above, there's no limit to how much you can back up at $7 per computer, even if on this there are many things in the device.
The backup was pretty quick to load. It will depend on your internet speed, but ours is not very fast and my first computer (1.5TB) takes 24 hours to charge. When you use the computer for other things, I didn't notice any slowdown. Since then I have noticed that it is constantly updated, as it should be.
When it comes to getting your files when you need them, there are a few ways you can go about it. Log into Backblaze and you'll see all the files and folders on your hard drive. If you only need one file, you can download it, or if you want more, you can download small to medium sized folders as zip files. If you need everything, you have the option to send everything as a hard drive (worst case).
I won't be backing up all of our computers to Backblaze ($7 per computer is reasonable, but it will add up). I think I'll back up both of my computers. they have a lot of data and important stuff (all our family photos and my work stuff). I'll probably continue to back up my wife's and kids' computers to local hard drives, but I'll probably take my oldest backup to Backblaze because there's a lot of data on her computer.
I can finally move everything to the cloud because the hard drive is failing. we will see
Photo by Alexander Sin on Unsplash
Try it yourself
If you're losing sleep over your files (or wondering if you should be backing them up but aren't), check out Backblaze.
They have a 15-day free trial to test it out.
Darren Rose
PS I haven't had one night in the last few weeks where I've been awake because of my files.
The post New Way to Protect Against a Data Loss Nightmare appeared first on ProBlogger.