Back-up your digital photos and important files

edited December 2011 in Local discussion
Just thought I'd start a separate thread about this after hearing about <a href="http://www.stroudgreen.org/discussion/3442/be-aware-burglary-on-thorpedale-road">this burglary</a> - I recently had my laptop stolen from work but fortunately they didn't take the external hard drive so I only lost a few photos ... <div><br></div><div>... I cannot describe how upset I would have been to lose my photos ... and so with this near miss in mind, it has prompted me to take action.<div><div><br></div><div>Now, theft is an extreme example ... but everyone should think about backing up their important information (photos, files etc.) because<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);"> computers and hard drives are not perfect machines ... they can break</span>.</div><div><br></div><div><b>Best solution = the cloud</b></div><div><br></div><div>The safest way to store your info is on the internet ... but please note, it's not a backup if it's your only copy.</div><div><br></div><div>Backing up to the cloud should also mean you keep a copy on your local computer / external hard drives.</div><div><br></div><div><ul><li><b>For files:</b> I use Dropbox / SugarSync / Google Docs</li><li><b>For Photos:</b> I have a pro account with Flickr (£15 for the year) that gives me unlimited photo uploads ... but there are solutions like Picassa (Google) and Windows Live Essentials (Microsoft) that will allow you quite a lot of storage space for free</li></ul></div><div><br></div><div><b>Multiple hard drives</b></div><div><br></div><div>If you back up to external hard drives ... keep them separate from your computer (to prevent theft). I think the technical description of "safe" is the length of a 747's wing from your computer or something ... which for most people is 'not in the house'.  (If there is a fire you'll lose everything)</div><div><br></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Again - back-up means multiple copies.</span></div><div><div><br></div></div><div>Don't think it won't happen to you ... there are a million reasons why you could lose data (haven't even touched on software threats like viruses).</div><div><br></div><h3><font color="#ff0000"><b>Make sure you have a back-up plan ... follow it frequently ... keep multiple copies of your important information.</b></font></h3></div><div><br></div><div>Does anyone have any other advice to contribute?</div></div>

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