# Backing up your data



## Bobw235 (Oct 27, 2016)

How many of your are diligent about backing up your computers and phones? Right now I'm using physical drives on each computer, but I'm thinking of using a "cloud" solution as my photo library grows. What are others doing?


----------



## Ameriscot (Oct 27, 2016)

I'm looking at backing up all my Flickr albums.  All the photos are backed up on an external hard drive, but I'd hate to lose the organisation I have on Flickr.


----------



## Don M. (Oct 27, 2016)

I use an external HD, and backup my files at least once every 4 or 5 days.  When I take any photos...family gatherings, etc., I usually copy them to a DVD within a couple of days....that way, I have a permanent copy that should be good for decades, in case my HD decides to die.


----------



## bluebreezes (Oct 27, 2016)

Great poll question, Bob, thanks! 

I use a few backup methods:
1. Daily to an external LaCie hard drive (using Apple's Time Machine utility, compressed)
2. Weekly to another external hard drive by manually dragging important files over
3. Daily to iCloud (this is an automatic sync setting, compressed and encrypted), includes all settings, documents, photos
4. Backup to DVD monthly (important documents, photos, videos)


----------



## Bobw235 (Oct 27, 2016)

Bluebreezes, how do you like iCloud? I've got over 130 GB of photos on my Mac. Does it work well? I'm also using a 1 TB LaCie drive for normal backups every few days. Don't have a DVD drive in my Mac, so that's not an option.

Nothing like a drive failure to ruin your day.


----------



## SeaBreeze (Oct 27, 2016)

I don't backup my computer, don't really keep any crucially important things on it.  When I want to save photos from vacations, etc., I load them onto a CD.


----------



## tnthomas (Oct 27, 2016)

Both our Android phones are set up to automatically upload camera photos to Dropbox.  I also use Google Drive "on the fly" to drag drop files from my machines to "the cloud".


----------



## Son_of_Perdition (Oct 27, 2016)

My laptops/tablets/phones are backed up to either HD, an external HD, Google Drive or DropBox.  Videos because of size are backed up to a 1 TB external HD (I figure I have room for over 800).  Run backups every Sunday morning.  I also have 2 redundant jump drives for all documents.  Hate trying to recover passwords in case of a hardware failure.  

Save & Save Often!


----------



## MarkinPhx (Oct 27, 2016)

I use Google Drive for documents and for my photos I use Google Photo's. I do backup a mirror image of my hard drive about once a month but aside from that don't back up to any type of physical media anymore.


----------



## bluebreezes (Oct 27, 2016)

Bobw235 said:


> Bluebreezes, how do you like iCloud? I've got over 130 GB of photos on my Mac. Does it work well? I'm also using a 1 TB LaCie drive for normal backups every few days. Don't have a DVD drive in my Mac, so that's not an option.



My MacBook Pro doesn't have a DVD drive either, so I use an external USB DVD drive. It's not the external Superdrive from Apple (which is $80), and it was much cheaper (sorry, can't remember the brand). Works flawlessly and I've had it since 2011.

I really like the ease of iCloud Drive, iCloud (for iOS), and iCloud Photo Library for backup and syncing between my iPhone and Mac, and had used its predecessor, Mobile Me, from the beginning. There's some good Apple Support articles to read if you're interested in getting it set up, what gets backed up to where and how, and other management items.


----------



## Ken N Tx (Oct 28, 2016)

SeaBreeze said:


> I don't backup my computer, don't really keep any crucially important things on it.  When I want to save photos from vacations, etc., I load them onto a CD.



..I use USB Flash Drives..


----------



## Ameriscot (Oct 28, 2016)

I have a Chromebook and travel with it.  So I have Google Drive and love it.


----------



## Ken N Tx (Oct 28, 2016)

Ameriscot said:


> I have a Chromebook and travel with it.  So I have Google Drive and love it.



I also use DropBox whatever I enter there goes to all my devices..


----------



## Jackie22 (Oct 28, 2016)

I also use a Chromebook.....don't backup anything.


----------



## Ameriscot (Oct 28, 2016)

Ken N Tx said:


> I also use DropBox whatever I enter there goes to all my devices..



I've looked at that but haven't tried it yet.  I'll check it out.


----------



## HazyDavey (Oct 28, 2016)

Daily backup on both our desktops using external hard drives.
DVD backup every 4 months or so, or if there's something important that comes up. 
(I use a recording program on my computer when we work on tunes. That's a lot of work to have to redo, whew..)
I've thought about using the cloud also but I've haven't come around to it yet.

I have to say that backing up my work has saved my butt a time or two.. ride:


----------



## Ken N Tx (Oct 29, 2016)

Hazy Davey said:


> Daily backup on both our desktops using external hard drives.
> DVD backup every 4 months or so, or if there's something important that comes up.
> (I use a recording program on my computer when we work on tunes. That's a lot of work to have to redo, whew..)
> I've thought about using the cloud also but I've haven't come around to it yet.
> ...



A couple of years ago I had my desk top crash and lost a years worth of family pictures!! Since then I have used both a Flash Drive and Dropbox..

With the dropbox account, I load the picture to my computer/tablet/kindle and then send it to my dropbox account(free)..


----------



## bluebreezes (Oct 29, 2016)

Hazy Davey said:


> I have to say that backing up my work has saved my butt a time or two..



Yeah for sure, it only takes losing something important once to realize how important backing up is. I still find there are people who don't back up important stuff and then wonder why the computer company doesn't have their photos or know their passwords. About once a year I like to do a partial restore test from a backup into a test folder to make sure it's working as expected.

I avoid Dropbox because of their large hack of approximately 68 million accounts this past summer. If you're using it, make sure to change your password regularly at the very least and don't store anything that you wouldn't want made public.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...million-users-is-now-or-sale-on-the-dark-web/


----------



## Bobw235 (Oct 29, 2016)

My wife has been keeping a journal on her computer for nearly 19 years! She writes in it EVERY day. It's a large file. Now, she would never think to back up her computer, but I do, because I know how much grief she'd be in to lose this file. Right now I keep it on a portable LaCie drive. I am hesitant to do a cloud back up for a file like this, given all the personal details she keeps in her journal. I live in fear of that file becoming lost/corrupted.


----------



## bluebreezes (Oct 29, 2016)

Wow, 19 years, that's amazing and very admirable. I have the same concerns about large files, so for something like a journal, I create a new one each year. MS Word files can be notoriously buggy and corruptible (and I've been using it since it was first introduced), but you can find articles about "avoiding Word document corruption" if that happens to be the software she uses.


----------



## Bobw235 (Oct 29, 2016)

> Wow, 19 years, that's amazing and very admirable. I have the same concerns about large files, so for something like a journal, I create a new one each year. MS Word files can be notoriously buggy and corruptible (and I've been using it since it was first introduced), but you can find articles about "avoiding Word document corruption" if that happens to be the software she uses.​



She's using a program called MacJournal from Mariner Software. A nice program that works well and handles a range of file types (audio, video, pictures, etc. ) within the diary. Even allows dictation for entries. When she switched to the MacBook several years ago, I was able to take the data from her old program (My Personal Diary, a Windows app) and convert it to a text file with separate entries for each date, then import it to the new program. I was so nervous about losing anything, but it came over with a minimum of glitches. We've actually had to old backups when switching to a new computer to find entries that didn't go over cleanly.

I think she keeps the entire file as one for ease of looking up older dates. She can quickly see what she wrote 10-15 years ago on a specific date. It's been really helpful to have that at times. She is very disciplined about writing in it, and even has paper notebooks with her diaries from when she was younger, going back to childhood.


----------



## Son_of_Perdition (Oct 31, 2016)

Using Google Docs & DropBox for your documents & pictures along with a bootable stand alone Open Source distro like Knoppix or others on a bootable DVD lessens the possibility of hackers, viruses or data loss.  You can boot off any laptop or desktop, access your data through the installed browser, nothing gets stored on the HD, hackers can't install anything to your non-writable DVD or corrupt your files unless there is a failure at Google.  Once you exit the browser & close the distro all online activity is trashed.


----------

