Save Your Memories & Sanity: The Simple Guide to Backing Up Your Tech (Before Disaster Strikes!)
My friend Mandy rushed into the restaurant and dropped into her chair dejectedly. (I’ve always wanted to use that word in an article.) “You won’t believe what just happened,” she cried. “I was hurrying to get here, my phone was I my hand, I was kind of jogging across the street, and my purse started slipping off my shoulder, when I went to move it back into place, I dropped my phone. The light had changed and the cars were starting to move, so I couldn’t stop to pick it up, and just as I got to the curb, I turned around and watched a car roll right over it.” As Mandy stopped for breath, I could see that she was fairly upset over the incident.
“Oh, that sucks,” I sympathized. “Well, take a few deep breaths, let’s order our drinks, and look at the menu. After the waiter takes our order, we can figure out how to get you back into a phone.” We both knew there was no wishing it hadn’t happened, and the only thing for Mandy to do after she calmed down a bit was to move forward.
While we were waiting for our lunch to arrive, as gently as I could, I started asking the questions that would help Mandy figure out where she stood and what needed to be done next. This is kind of my specialty with my friends. “Have you been doing your backups?”
“Oh, yes,” Mandy said, and she could see where this was going to go. “Every week like clockwork. So, if I lose anything, it’ll just be any pictures I took since Saturday, and I don’t think there are any. Most of what’s on my phone is just apps that use the services online.”
“All right, then. Do you want to use my phone to get one ordered, or shall we stop at the phone store on the way back to work?”
This could have played out very differently. Mandy could have lost a lot of documents, precious photos, and notes. I have preached at her about backups, and she waved me off repeatedly, until I shared an incident with her that made her a believer. On our recent trip to Yellowstone, my husband and I both carried our personal phones and our work phones. Neither of us used our work phones much, but we were glad to have them. The night before we were to fly back home, my husband’s personal phone quit charging. Just plain quit. I had trouble sleeping because we had a really early flight out, so sometime in the night I got up and made a backup of his phone onto my computer. I had done it periodically, but this gave me a chance to have a fresh copy. As soon as he woke up in the morning, I told him to forward his voice calls to his work phone. He no sooner got that done than the phone shut down completely, never to reanimate again. I sent text messages to the people who usually contact him via text on his personal phone, letting them know to text either his work phone or me. On our extremely long layover in Dallas, I got him a new phone ordered, it came in two days later, I got his backup loaded onto it, and he was back in business.
As you can see, in both these cases, the loss of the phone was unpleasant, and having to buy a new phone is an expense neither Mandy nor my husband had anticipated. However, both Mandy and my husband were inconvenienced, rather than panicked, over the loss of the phone. As soon as the new one came in, both were able to go on with life as normal. This is the primary lesson: A backup can turn an emergency into an inconvenience.
The Importance of Backups
Your phone doesn’t have to get run over to highlight the importance of backups. It could get lost or stolen, just plain quit working (like my husband’s did), or experience operating system or software issues so bad that a factory reset is the only cure. Your email lives on a server, your apps are accessing data that lives on a server, but unless you specifically designate a duplicate location for everything else, it doesn’t live on a server. It can be heartbreaking to lose all your pictures and that important document that will tell you how to find the breaker box the next time your lights go out. It doesn’t have to end in tragedy. Let’s take a look at how.
Introducing the 3-2-1 Backup Strategy
Ideally, you will keep three copies of your data: one on your primary device, one on a local storage device but not your primary device, and one offsite. I do that for the stuff I just can’t stand the thought of losing; stuff that I may need for legal or financial reasons, or stuff that is just cumbersome to replace. I have a local Network Attached Storage (NAS) device, which may sound really complicated, but it isn’t. It is easier for us to use it with our computers than with our phones and tablets, but we can back up phones and tablets to it. I’d really rather just back up our phones and tablets to my computer. Then my computer is backed up to the NAS. An external hard drive works just as well, or a thumb drive.
However, not everyone uses a computer anymore. At the very least, you should be using the cloud backup that your device’s manufacturer recommends. For iphone users, that’s iCloud, and that’s available for people who use non-Apple branded products. Google Drive is available to anyone with a Google account. There are free and paid tiers, and you should know how much of the free tier you can use before it fills up. If you plan on using it for storage of your critical files, consider a paid account. How much are those photos worth to you?
Your local storage device should be backed up to the cloud as well, and that’s not hard to set up. In fact, if you do a search on cloud backup solutions, you can compare the rates and features, and whichever one you select will have support people ready to help you get it set up and started backing up. They’ll also show you how to verify that the backups are happening, and they’ll show you how to access those backups if you ever need to.
You may wonder why a 3-2-1 plan, and that’s a valid question. Isn’t one backup enough? If your one backup is a reliable cloud solution, it may be. When I first wanted to get my photos backed up, our internet service was extremely limited, so I settled for just getting them backed up to the NAS. But what happens if we get a flood or fire, or if the device fails? Well, I would have to hope that my primary device would be okay until I got another NAS. Then my NAS manufacturer started offering cloud backup. However, we had satellite internet, and I could only get a little done each night while we were asleep and not using the service otherwise. We finally got fiber internet, and I have a rotating backup of my photos, documents, music, and videos. I also have my photos backed up on an external hard drive, just because I’m a belt-and-suspenders kind of person.
Choosing the Right Backup Option for You
For choosing the right backup option based on specific concerns, here are straightforward recommendations:
If data privacy is your top concern, consider local backups. Local backups, such as external hard drives or NAS devices, keep your data in your physical possession, reducing the risk of data breaches associated with online services. Encrypting these backups adds an extra layer of security.
For those prioritizing ease of access and recovery, look into cloud-based backups. Cloud services like Google Drive, iCloud, or Dropbox offer seamless integration with devices, automatic backup options, and the ability to access your data from anywhere with an internet connection. They also provide quick recovery options in case of data loss.
Users needing large storage capacity might prefer a combination of cloud and local backups. For large volumes of data, a hybrid approach can be cost-effective and practical. Use local backups for bulk data and sensitive information, while leveraging cloud storage for files you access frequently or need to share. This strategy ensures you’re not solely reliant on one method, providing both security and flexibility.
Things are going to happen that you didn’t plan for. Having a recovery plan is better than scrambling. My husband missed having his phone on that long flight home, because he didn’t bring any reading material, and, let’s face it, those airline magazines have limited entertainment value. But we didn’t have to panic because we had a plan, and we knew how to execute it. Mandy was only inconvenienced for a few hours (plus the cost of the phone, of course), because she had a plan and was working her plan.
Do you have a backup strategy that works for you that I haven’t mentioned? Share it in the comments and let’s see how creative we are at protecting that valuable data.
