My Computing Strategy #1 – The Cloud and Your Data
This is going to be a multipart blog series on how I use the computer.
Couple of things upfront:
- I use macs. I have a mac laptop and an iMac. I also have an iPhone. A lot of my daily work gets done on my PC in my office. After vicarage… back to life with just macs.
- This setup works for me. It may not work for you and that is fine. I often give people suggestions, but they are just that…. suggestions. You have to find out what works for you in your particular situation.
On to part #1… The Cloud and Your Data
As a by-product of the world we live in today we tend to generate a lot of data. By data I mean digital photos, documents both large and small, presentations, web pages, etc. For example, I have approximately 13,000 photos on my computers. These include many photos I’ve taken, but also a lot of photos that my mom and the rest of my family have scanned. This number probably increases by 100-200 every month. My photo libraries are over 25gb combined.
With so much data you have to ask yourself the question, how do I get to my data. Many households have problems because there data is spread between multiple machines, for example a laptop and a desktop. That is the case for our house but I also add in equation my work PC. I solve some of these problems by relying on what is called “cloud computing.” All of my important files reside in my Dropbox account (click this link for details on Dropbox and to sign up… I do get credit for you signing up). What this means is that when I create a file and save it to my dropbox on my work PC it gets automatically synced to both my laptop and my desktop at home. I can also access the files via a web interface and on my iPhone through the web interface (iPhone app is coming they tell us). The great thing about this setup is if one computer in the chain fails, the data in the dropbox isn’t lost. This has happened to me. The ability to get up and running again quickly is an amazing testament to the dropbox service. The only disadvantage is the size of the dropbox. You get 2gb for free. To upgrade to a 50gb or 100gb account involves paying either $120 or $240 for the year. Not cheap, but it is a good service.
With only 2gb you have to prioritize what you want on the account. All my seminary advising files reside there as well as all my vicarage documents. There are also a hodgepodge of other documents and photos that sit there. Overall, it is a great service.
What do you do with the rest? You make sure it is safe. You need to have a multilevel backup strategy. You also need to prioritize what is most important. For me the most important files are my pictures. My picture libraries reside in the following places:
- On the desktop computer.
- On an external Time Machine backup
- On an external hard drive that is bootable (critical if your internal drive fails)
- On an external hard drive that is set up to contain all my audio and video
- On an external hard drive that backs up all my audio video
- On my laptop
- On a drive that sits in my office desk (offsite)
Sound excessive? Nope. Am I happy with the setup? Nope. I want more layers. I want more offsite backup (probably through BackBlaze).
Other documents and also get backed up to multiple places. This is called redundancy and it is essential in the digital world. If you work in a church and do all your membership tracking and work on the computer, imagine the havoc if your computer hard drive failed. EVERYONE needs to backup. What is amazing is the cost of this keeps dropping. You can get a 1 TB drive (1,000 gb) for under $100 dollars now. You can get an unlimited Backblaze account for under $60. If pay for it and never have to use it…. great! If you don’t have it and need it…. you will realize quickly how big of a mistake you made in not spending a small amount of money to insure your data.
To be continued…. What to do about movies and audio files…
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