We get asked this so often. I mean a lot! By friends, family, other video and media companies, clients, you name it. So, what’s the secret when backing up data and media? As a Boston video company, we at Waves have a somewhat more complex system than the standard computer user but nonetheless there are a few tips and things you should keep in mind.
In the Cloud
Put it in the ‘cloud’! To most, it’s not so much a mystery anymore what is meant by this but for everyone else, ‘the cloud’ is defined in the dictionary. It says in computing the cloud refers to “a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet and used to store, manage, and process data in place of local servers or personal computers”
There are so many ways you can utilize the cloud. For photos things like unlimited photo and video storage on Google photos syncing across devices is the best bang for your buck. Flickr has proven a great tool as well for this. As for general data services like Backblaze (what we use at Waves Media), the more known Carbonite, and many more do a fantastic job aiding most users in somewhat carefree consistent back-up.
For storage and collaboration of calendars, spread sheets, and other documents Google Drive is universal and free. For a more secure platform (both local and in the cloud) that we rely on at work for this and active media project storage we, Dropbox is unrivaled. We have updated projects we are working on simultaneously updated all across our teams devices. It’s superb really.
Hard Drives and Local Storage
So yeah, the cloud is a pretty big deal and gets your stuff away from any ‘local’ catastrophe like a bad hard drive, theft, fire, you name it. However, having files local is still the next most important thing. It may even be just as important. And hard drives with lots of capacity are cheaper than ever. You can get 8TB drives now for under $200 (for instance see here on Best Buy)
For Mac users, you have a cool tool built into your operating system called Time Machine. Time Machine is a ‘do the thinking for you’ utility backing up your computer. This can be controlled manually or automatically with a local hard drive attached via cable or in conjunction with a network router. Easy to use and easy to recall files and back-ups needed later.
Carbon Copy Cloner is a tool we have started to use at Waves for ‘cloned’ back-up to multiple hard drives. Push a button and it mirrors back-ups to drives to give you even more peace of mind. Pretty cool.
Start Somewhere
So this may all be overwhelming but you can probably start somewhere. Pick the thing that you know you can do today to start your back-up planning. It will prove well worth it.