One of the most common things we hear in the computer repair shop that I work part-time in is that the computer has crashed, and could we please make sure to get the data off of the hard drive before we re-install windows. And, the first question we always ask is, “do you have your data backed up?” I probably don’t have to tell you what the common answer is to that question.
Many computer users assume that backing up their data is expensive. We see advertisements for services that cost $40-$50 a month, and for external hard drive solutions that are several hundred dollars. But, keeping your data safe, doesn’t have to be expensive. In fact, I’ve got all my important data backed up, and I spend less than $50 a year. It’s not because I have some inside information, or get favors from tech companies. You can do it too. And, if you value your data at all, you should.
This is the set-up I currently use.
Picture Backup
Pictures are one of the top two things that people are concerned about losing when they bring their computers in. Unfortunately, pictures are also the largest files that you’ll likely have to backup and store. If you take a lot, you can have Gigabytes of pictures that will need to be backed up. In my set-up, I pay for a full membership to photo sharing site, Flickr. It’s about $26 a year, and allows for unlimited uploading to the site. The pictures are then stored on Flickr’s server, and I can get to them whenever I want. I should note that this isn’t the most elegant solution, as I would have to download the images one-by-one if I wanted to restore them to my local PC. I’ll go over some more efficient services at the end, but you’ll likely have to spend more money to use them. (See note below: 4/15/13)
Data Backup
For any files that are important, besides pictures, I use a service called Dropbox. Their basic plan is free, but limits you to 2GB of data storage. Because I backup my photos elsewhere, I’m able to store everything else that is important with them, and keep the free account. After several years of using it, I am getting close to the 2GB max, so I may have to upgrade to the next plan up soon. The first paid plan allows for 50GB, and is only $9.99 a month, so I don’t think I’d ever have to go above that plan. I should also note, here, that if you have a very large music collection on your computer that you’d like to backup, you’ll likely have to look at a paid plan. (See note below: 4/15/13)
Other options for data backup
There are several other options that you could use for data backup. The aforementioned external hard drives can be super easy to use. One drawback to using one, however, is that the data is still physically located in the same place as the PC you’re backing up. That’s fine if you only need to restore because of PC failure, but can be a disaster if you have to restore due to something like a fire or flood. Ideally, external hard drives that are used for PC backup should be placed in an off-site location, but since that’s a bit cumbersome and likely to keep you from actually backing up your data, they should be at least placed in a fire-proof safe when not in use.
Another, more ideal way to back your data up, is through a service like Dropbox. There are a few others that are specifically designed and marketed as data backup services. Carbonite is probably the most well-known of them, but there is also CrashPlan, and Mozy that do the same job. Carbonite and CrashPlan come in at $59 a year (about $4 a month), while Mozy comes in at $5.99 a month. Crashplan has a free plan, but it requires you to have your own server to back up to. This can work out if you have a second computer at another location or have a friend that you trust with your data. They’ve also got a plan that’s $33 a year, but it limits you to 10GB total storage.
Not backing up your data can be an expensive mistake to make. Not only can it cost you a lot of money ($100 or more) to get your computer fixed, but you could lose all of your valuable data. Save yourself the money of having it recovered, and save yourself from losing years of photos and information; get a data backup plan.
Update 4/15/13:
One of the nice things about a disaster recovery backup plan is that you usually don’t have to use it. More often than not, our computers run on and on until we replace them and we transfer the data to the next machine. Earlier this week, I had to put my set up to the test. My main storage hard drive crashed. While I tried to recover the data from it, it was lost. With a newly formatted hard drive, I was able to reinstall Dropbox and as soon as it was done syncing, I had all the data that was in Dropbox back on my PC. The Flickr photo backup was a little bit more cumbersome. There are several apps out there that you can run that will allow you to download all of your pictures one after the other. I ended up using one called Flump. It worked, but the pictures are in one heck of a mess. None of them have any names, and the structure I had before is lost. So, I’ve got 7000+ pictures to sort through. Moving forward, I’ll be adding one of the above back up services (Crashplan or Carbonite) to my PC to back up my file structure and other assorted things. For the $59 a year it costs, it’s worth the added convenience of not having to deal with the sorting of files and individual applications.
Do you backup your data? What do you use for your data backup plan?
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I have a Dropbox account, and I also use Box.net – similar service, but I got in on 50 GB free for life. I use those more for things I need to transfer between computers or devices, though.
I just bought a Time Capsule that automatically backs up my Mac every few hours. If the Mac ever dies, I can get another one and reload everything from backup. I’ve always been notoriously lazy when it comes to backing up, simply because manual backups are so time-consuming, so this was a great (though not terribly frugal) options for me.
Jeff @ Sustainable Life Blogsays
at this moment, I only have my pictures and a few important documents backed up. I got a 2TB HD for like 50 bucks a while back, and I’ve got the documents on dropbox. I also email myself a lot of things, so I guess Gmail counts too. I recently purchased an upgrade to the OS so that I could use apple’s time machine (I was still using an os released in 06) and have that auto backup everything on my machine and my fiancee’s machine. I’m still running an os 2 versions old, but for $29, I figured the upgrade was worth it. My computer is old, and I dont want to be left in the lurch if it goes down in flames on me.
Ashley @ Money Talkssays
The only thing we back up are our pictures. We use an external hard drive and have them all on several computers. Fire would be the only real threat to them right now.
What we SHOULD do is keep it in the car, or at a family members house. Or use flickr or something like you mentioned.
B.B.says
@andrea backup is a necessary cost. Frugal or not, you gotta do it.
@jeff That’s two for timecapsule. I guess we need to work on bringing you and @andrea back from the dark side…
@ashley Redundancy is good. You can also get a small firesafe for <$100 that you can store important documents and that external drive in and give you reasonable protection in case of fire.
Petersays
I also use Flickr for the GBs of photos that we have. If you search around there are actually software you can download to download your pictures to your computer if they’re ever lost. For example we accidentally deleted a couple of directories of photos. We just went and got the program (i forget the name), selected which sets to download – and it downloaded them to our computer overnight.
For computer backups i just use a program called “CrashPlan” that backs up locally to a hard drive, as well as to other computers (like a friend or relative) on your network or over the internet. Works very well and it’s free. You can also pay for online backups if you want.
We also use dropbox for important financial documents/etc.
Dr. Jason Cabler (@DrCabler)says
The new Google Music app is great for backing up music for free. I believe the limit is 20,000 songs. I just uploaded my collection and it works great. You can stream to your phone via Google Music App or stream to any internet device just by accessing your account.
B.B.says
Thanks for the tip, Jason. Did you have to do anything to verify ownership of the songs, or just have the file? I wonder how they’re handling licensing for all of that.
B.B.says
@peter I didn’t know there were programs for downloading from Flickr. Although, I suppose I should have guessed that there were. I’ve heard of CrashPlan, but haven’t ever tested it out before. Might have to give it a looksee. Thanks for the tip.
Miss T @ Prairie Eco-Thriftersays
We use Dropbox for work and travel. It is a great way to store stuff you need access to on the go. For our big back up at home we use Crashplan. It works really good. We have no complaints. In fact I have convinced a few other Yakezie to give it a shot.
Anthonysays
Interesting you didn’t cover Microsoft’s SkyDrive. It offers 25GB of space for free for any type of file and they just released apps for iOS and Windows Phone so that you can backup your pictures straight from those devices.
dwasifarsays
I don’t know if I’d use Dropbox for “important” files as the article suggests, especially if those files are important because they contain personal information like bank accounts, credit card info, or other such identity-theft target info. For anything you give to Dropbox (or other such service), you’re trusting them to keep your data secure against hacking or accidental loss.
For sensitive personal information, the best practice is to keep it under your own physical control. Back up to an external device and store it somewhere else, preferably offsite, but someplace you control.
MSBsays
I bought two identical external hard drives. The 1st month, connect one to the computer full time to run incremental backups. At the end of the month, swap the drive with the 2nd external drive and take the 1st drive to a trusted friend’s house (GET THE DRIVE OFF SITE!). Then every month, swap the drives. Permanent nearly current offsite backup.
Scottsays
I use CrashPlan to backup my PC. It was the only online backup product I found that allows me to set my own encyption key. No one, inclucing CrashPlan, can decrypt my stuff without that key.
Rick in Palo ALtosays
I recently bought a Blu-Ray burner specifically for backups and archives. About $140 total for the burner and a spindle of 20 25GB discs. It ends up being about 6 TB of available space for that spindle.
Yes, it does take time to burn and verify the backups, but now any time I need more space, $20 will buy me another spindle of disks and another 6TB.
That being said, I also back up photos by simply keeping them on their respective memory cards and buying new ones.
I also keep documents on Gmail and DropBox
It’s good to keep backups, but it’s better to keep multiple backups.
B.B.says
@Miss T That’s two votes for CrashPlan. I’ll have to check that one out. And the portability is the big reason that I like dropbox.
@anthony I was only vaguely aware of Skydrive, so didn’t feel comfortable including it. Might be worth a look though.
@dwasifar dropbox is just as secure as most of the other options, but you do have to weigh how much of your personal information you store on there. An external device in an offsite location is the ideal method, but many won’t take the time to do the backups to the device and then move it to an offsite location, which is why the services like dropbox are so popular.
@MSB That’s the ideal solution. Again, though, only if you’re going to do it consistently. Miss a month or two, and you suddenly don’t have very good backups of anything current.
@Scott And you make three for CrashPlan. A custom encryption key makes it much more attractive.
@Rick I agree, multiple backups can be a good solution. One downside is sorting out which is the most recent when you’re looking in two locations for the backup.
Edwin @ You Need Debt Reliefsays
I use DropBox and have an account at SugarSync too. That’s about 10 gigs total between the two of them from their free account which is enough for me.
bob smithsays
I use Sugarsync, it’s like dropbox, but with much better pricing and easy syncing.
You install it, tell it which folders to watch, and every time there is a change with any of the files, it automatically backs the file up on their servers. Plus it’s dirt cheap.
FI Pilgrimsays
I just noticed that Box.net recently came out with a desktop sync tool, which makes it similar to Dropbox. The only difference is that I have 100GB of free storage for life at Box.net, so that’s awesome for backup purposes.
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I have a Dropbox account, and I also use Box.net – similar service, but I got in on 50 GB free for life. I use those more for things I need to transfer between computers or devices, though.
I just bought a Time Capsule that automatically backs up my Mac every few hours. If the Mac ever dies, I can get another one and reload everything from backup. I’ve always been notoriously lazy when it comes to backing up, simply because manual backups are so time-consuming, so this was a great (though not terribly frugal) options for me.
at this moment, I only have my pictures and a few important documents backed up. I got a 2TB HD for like 50 bucks a while back, and I’ve got the documents on dropbox. I also email myself a lot of things, so I guess Gmail counts too.
I recently purchased an upgrade to the OS so that I could use apple’s time machine (I was still using an os released in 06) and have that auto backup everything on my machine and my fiancee’s machine. I’m still running an os 2 versions old, but for $29, I figured the upgrade was worth it. My computer is old, and I dont want to be left in the lurch if it goes down in flames on me.
The only thing we back up are our pictures. We use an external hard drive and have them all on several computers. Fire would be the only real threat to them right now.
What we SHOULD do is keep it in the car, or at a family members house. Or use flickr or something like you mentioned.
@andrea backup is a necessary cost. Frugal or not, you gotta do it.
@jeff That’s two for timecapsule. I guess we need to work on bringing you and @andrea back from the dark side…
@ashley Redundancy is good. You can also get a small firesafe for <$100 that you can store important documents and that external drive in and give you reasonable protection in case of fire.
I also use Flickr for the GBs of photos that we have. If you search around there are actually software you can download to download your pictures to your computer if they’re ever lost. For example we accidentally deleted a couple of directories of photos. We just went and got the program (i forget the name), selected which sets to download – and it downloaded them to our computer overnight.
For computer backups i just use a program called “CrashPlan” that backs up locally to a hard drive, as well as to other computers (like a friend or relative) on your network or over the internet. Works very well and it’s free. You can also pay for online backups if you want.
We also use dropbox for important financial documents/etc.
The new Google Music app is great for backing up music for free. I believe the limit is 20,000 songs. I just uploaded my collection and it works great. You can stream to your phone via Google Music App or stream to any internet device just by accessing your account.
Thanks for the tip, Jason. Did you have to do anything to verify ownership of the songs, or just have the file? I wonder how they’re handling licensing for all of that.
@peter I didn’t know there were programs for downloading from Flickr. Although, I suppose I should have guessed that there were. I’ve heard of CrashPlan, but haven’t ever tested it out before. Might have to give it a looksee. Thanks for the tip.
We use Dropbox for work and travel. It is a great way to store stuff you need access to on the go. For our big back up at home we use Crashplan. It works really good. We have no complaints. In fact I have convinced a few other Yakezie to give it a shot.
Interesting you didn’t cover Microsoft’s SkyDrive. It offers 25GB of space for free for any type of file and they just released apps for iOS and Windows Phone so that you can backup your pictures straight from those devices.
I don’t know if I’d use Dropbox for “important” files as the article suggests, especially if those files are important because they contain personal information like bank accounts, credit card info, or other such identity-theft target info. For anything you give to Dropbox (or other such service), you’re trusting them to keep your data secure against hacking or accidental loss.
For sensitive personal information, the best practice is to keep it under your own physical control. Back up to an external device and store it somewhere else, preferably offsite, but someplace you control.
I bought two identical external hard drives. The 1st month, connect one to the computer full time to run incremental backups. At the end of the month, swap the drive with the 2nd external drive and take the 1st drive to a trusted friend’s house (GET THE DRIVE OFF SITE!). Then every month, swap the drives. Permanent nearly current offsite backup.
I use CrashPlan to backup my PC. It was the only online backup product I found that allows me to set my own encyption key. No one, inclucing CrashPlan, can decrypt my stuff without that key.
I recently bought a Blu-Ray burner specifically for backups and archives. About $140 total for the burner and a spindle of 20 25GB discs. It ends up being about 6 TB of available space for that spindle.
Yes, it does take time to burn and verify the backups, but now any time I need more space, $20 will buy me another spindle of disks and another 6TB.
That being said, I also back up photos by simply keeping them on their respective memory cards and buying new ones.
I also keep documents on Gmail and DropBox
It’s good to keep backups, but it’s better to keep multiple backups.
@Miss T That’s two votes for CrashPlan. I’ll have to check that one out. And the portability is the big reason that I like dropbox.
@anthony I was only vaguely aware of Skydrive, so didn’t feel comfortable including it. Might be worth a look though.
@dwasifar dropbox is just as secure as most of the other options, but you do have to weigh how much of your personal information you store on there. An external device in an offsite location is the ideal method, but many won’t take the time to do the backups to the device and then move it to an offsite location, which is why the services like dropbox are so popular.
@MSB That’s the ideal solution. Again, though, only if you’re going to do it consistently. Miss a month or two, and you suddenly don’t have very good backups of anything current.
@Scott And you make three for CrashPlan. A custom encryption key makes it much more attractive.
@Rick I agree, multiple backups can be a good solution. One downside is sorting out which is the most recent when you’re looking in two locations for the backup.
I use DropBox and have an account at SugarSync too. That’s about 10 gigs total between the two of them from their free account which is enough for me.
I use Sugarsync, it’s like dropbox, but with much better pricing and easy syncing.
You install it, tell it which folders to watch, and every time there is a change with any of the files, it automatically backs the file up on their servers. Plus it’s dirt cheap.
I just noticed that Box.net recently came out with a desktop sync tool, which makes it similar to Dropbox. The only difference is that I have 100GB of free storage for life at Box.net, so that’s awesome for backup purposes.