There are two types of people in this world.
People with backups...
& PEOPLE WHO HAVE YET TO LOSE EVERYTHING.
Data loss can happen to anyone.
Let’s face it, you may have a great computer or external hard drive, but one day they’re going to wear out and you may lose your data.
Or, you may experience a flood, fire, or natural disaster that wipes out both your computer and your backup storage media in one go.
It happens more often than you’d think.
If you’re lucky, we may be able to rescue your data in-shop under our affordable flat-rate labor.
If the damage is so severe that it needs to go to a Certified Clean Room for attempted recovery,
the cost to recover data can range from $500-$3,000.
That’s the gamble you take if you don’t backup your data.
Traditionally, backups have been stored on physical media like floppy disks, CDs, and – more recently – USB flash drives and external hard drives.
These present several limitations. As they are usually locally stored, they are susceptible to some of the same incidents that might kill a computer, like power issues, and physical disasters, for instance. Tapes/CDs/Thumb drives are also susceptible to the human experience of “forgetting” or “misplacing.”
External drives can be automated, but are typically mechanical in nature, and therefore subject to the same limitations and failures as internal hard disk drives.
One workaround to this might be to store backups in a fireproof safe, or keep them offsite at a friend’s house. However, this introduces a potential problem wherein a backup doesn’t get run regularly, and getting set back on an 8-hour project isn’t much fun.
Don't fear the cloud — embrace it!
You've been using the cloud for years, you just didn't know to call it that.
Nobody says their emails are in the cloud - but they are!
Cloud-based storage options have a number of advantages over their antiquated local counterparts:
- Redundancy: Data is stored across multiple drives, in multiple machines, in multiple geographic locations.
- Untouchable: Fire? Flood? Power Surge? Ransomware? None of these can touch files stored in the cloud.
- Ease of Access: You can log in and grab a file you need anytime, from any computer in the world.
- Peace of mind: Since most good solutions will sync instantly, you’ll never worry about being set back more than 60 minutes of your life.
A good cloud-based backup will offer versioning, in case a corrupt file gets uploaded to replace the good one – or you have regrets after some late-night editing.
Each of the key players in the OS Market have a solution that directly integrates with that OS.
As a baseline, they cover the critical locations on folks’ computers: Desktop, Documents, and Pictures.
Our cloud storage breakdown
- 5GB – Free
If you have a Microsoft account – which you do if you have a Skype, Xbox, MSN, Hotmail, or Outlook account – you already get 5GB for free. - 100GB – $1.99/mo
At roughly the cost of parking downtown for an hour, or a bus ticket, this is a very affordable option. - 1TB – $6.99/mo or $69.99/yr (about $14 savings under annual pricing)
For an individual subscription to Microsoft365 – this includes 1TB of storage along with the OfficeSuite. - 6 TB (total, 1000 GB per person) – $9.99/mo or $99.99/yr (about $20 savings under annual pricing)
For you and 5 friends or family members, each person receives access to 1TB of storage as well as the OfficeSuite.
If you share with 5 friends, it averages to about $16.67/person/year, or, roughly $1.33/person/month, which makes this one of the most affordable options available. - If you’re a business, the pricing ranges from $5.00-$12.50 per user/month depending on how many additional features you want access to.
Microsoft OneDrive is one of our absolute favorite options. If you come through the shop with a Windows computer and OneDrive is not enabled, we enable it for you and configure it to automatically backup and sync the files on your desktop, documents, and pictures folders – at a minimum.
Personally, I also choose to backup my music and videos libraries, as well as my game save files. Which means, any computer I have configured with OneDrive, I could log into Steam, download a game, and it will remember my progress.
I love that my work computer, laptop, and home custom-build gaming computer, are all in sync so that I have access to my entire database across all three systems. Not to mention the ability to log into OneDrive.com and browse my files, or open them in the OneDrive app on my iPhone. It is an excellent bang for buck cloud backup option, the integration is nearly seamless, and overall we haven’t had any issues or complaints.
- 5GB – Free
- 50GB – $0.99/mo
- 200GB – $2.99/mo
- 2TB – $9.99/mo
If you are a faithful Apple user and wish to have access to Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and iCloud storage, then an Apple One plan could be a good fit for you, otherwise, the prices are less enticing than those that Microsoft OneDrive offers.
- 50GB – $14.95/mo
Individual plan, includes Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and 50GB iCloud storage. - 200GB – $19.95/month
Family plan, 200GB of iCloud storage is shared between up to 6 family members, not 200GB each. Everyone gets access to the services outlined above. - 2TB – $29.95/month
Premier plan includes 2TB shared iCloud storage, everything else noted above, as well as Apple News+, Fitness+.
If 2TB isn’t enough space, folks who subscribe to Apple One could also choose to mix and match services.
For example, one could choose the Apple One monthly subscription of 50GB for $14.95 and then buy an additional 200GB through iCloud for $2.99, for a total monthly fee of $19.94 for 250GB of storage as well as access to AppleTV, Apple Music, and Apple Arcade.
At the same price as the 200GB plan, this certainly a legitimate, albeit a bit complicated, option.
Under that same methodology, iCloud users have the option of upgrading to a total of 4TB. That would cost $29.95 for the Apple One plan with 2TB storage and then an additional $9.99 for the 2TB iCloud plan. In other words, 4TB of storage for $49.94 monthly, which is nearly $600 per year. Ouch.
That said, if you absolutely need 4TB of cloud storage, we have a different, more affordable option for you through iDrive (which is in no way affiliated with Apple despite the i-name) down below.
The nice thing about iCloud is that in addition to the “big three” (desktop, documents, pictures,) iCloud covers other areas of your devices, like your contacts, iMessages, apps and their data — your high score in Candy Crush, for instance. It’s easy to configure, it’s easy to log into iCloud.com and download your pictures or documents from any computer, and it’s a completely seamless backup for all the devices in the Apple ecosystem.
Regardless, we still recommend Mac users get a external hard drive and periodically run a Time Machine Backup.
Time Machine not only backs up all of your data, but things like system preferences and settings.
It effectively lets you recreate your system exactly as you like it on a new device in the event your laptop becomes a victim of gravity.
My partner and I choose to share 200GB of iCloud storage for our Apple devices for $3.00/mo. Previously we were both paying $1/mo for the 50GB plan, and we each hit the 50GB ceiling somewhere around 3 years ago. We still haven’t needed to upgrade above 200GB since then, with our cumulative usage around 150GB as of now. Do with that what you will.
- 15GB – Free
- 100GB – $1.99/mo or $19.99/yr ($3.89 savings annually)
- 200GB – $2.99/mo or $29.99/yr ($5.89 savings annually)
- 2TB – $9.99/mo or $99.99/yr ($19.89 savings annually)
Honestly, we use the GSuite system for our company email addresses, domains, etc, but we don’t like the Google cloud options quite as much as the OneDrive, iCloud, or iDrive options. Google is notorious for selling anonymized data from their clients (if the majority of their products are free, how are they making a profit?) and we find their backup setup for your documents, desktop, and pictures, to be a bit clunky and poorly organized.
Ultimately it’s just not quite as smooth of a backup as an option native to your operating system (i.e. Microsoft or Apple) but a less-than-ideal cloud backup is better than no-cloud-backup. And with a generous 15GB ceiling for the free plan, most folks don’t end up needing to pay for additional storage for quite sometime, if at all.
That said, these are perfectly legitimate options that some people really like.
If you use a Chromebook, Android device, or just heavily use the Google Drive office utilities for school or work, you may like these options just fine.
For more robust storage requirements, iDrive offers some pretty nifty perks. We’re partnered with iDrive to be able to offer our clients an additional discount off of their services.
- 5GB – Free
- 5TB – $69.50/yr — $52.12 for the first year through our referral link.
- 10TB – $99.50/yr — $74.62 for the first year through our referral link.
When we help clients who work in music and video production, art and graphic design, or any field where you’re working with very large files, we set them up with iDrive as their cloud backup.
Aside from the absolutely fantastic price per GB for storage, there are some other reasons folks like this option the best:
- Privacy: Some folks are averse to using the cloud due to language in EULAs that gives companies the right to use content stored on their servers however they see fit – iDrive allows you to establish a private encryption key, ensuring the only person looking at your stuff is you.
- Server Backup: A server is often the cornerstone of a business’ IT needs – a good backup enables easy reimplementation of group policies and active directories in the event of critical hardware failure.
- Unlimited: In terms of concurrent devices on the same plan, not storage – though with 5TB as a starting point, the storage will surely feel unlimited.
- Control: Want to back up a specific location on your computer? And external device? iDrive’s got you covered.
I need to preface this by saying, don’t go with DropBox. It’s honestly the worst option available.
- 2GB – Free
- 2TB – $11.99/mo ($143.88 yearly) or billed annually at $118.88 ($24 price difference)
- 2TB “Family” – $19.99/mo ($239.88 yearly) or billed annually at $203.88 ($36 price difference.)
This plan is for 2TB shared data for up to 6 users, averaging about 333GB per person. - 3TB – $19.99/mo ($239.88 yearly) or billed annually at $199.00 (40.88 price difference)
DropBox only in the last year or so began doing automatic backup and sync for your devices, a feature which other cloud backup services have been offering for several years now. Even then, there’s a cap on how many devices you can set to automatically back up. Unlike OneDrive, for example, which does not have a limit on the number devices you can configure.
Ultimately, DropBox was invented because the owner was out of town and forgot his thumbdrive. An origin story that accurately reflects its capabilities, as this service is truly only slightly better than carrying a thumbdrive around with you. Until recently, the quality of the backup relied entirely on the user’s ability to remember to run it. Meaning even if you have data in your DropBox, your most recent versions could be days, weeks, months, or years out of date leaving you having to recreate countless hours of work.
We get a lot of people in the shop for data recovery who think they have a backup of their stuff because they use DropBox and they are sorely disappointed when the look and see what they actually have. We also think they’re outrageously overpriced considering the significantly lacking benefits of subscribing. Don’t rely on DropBox for your backup.
The core advantage of a local backup is without a doubt going to be the speed at which data can be restored because you’re not at the mercy of internet speeds.
An external drive also doubles as an extended, portable storage solution in case things are getting packed on your computer’s drive as you can move things back and forth.
Finally, they are engineered for the post-apocalypse – the internet can die, and you’ll still have your stuff.
Good luck on the electricity front though.
Personally, I choose to have both solutions available to myself. If I were to pick one or the other, however, I would absolutely keep it in the cloud. It’s fireproof.
While the chances of irrecoverably losing all of your data, in say, a natural disaster aren’t great, with the amount of wildfires across the west coast the last few years, don’t recommend assuming that you are immune from the possibility.
It’s never a bad idea to take precautions should the unthinkable happen. Think of a data backup as one of those better-safe-than-sorry precautions. It’s relatively inexpensive and it doesn’t take much time, but the cost of going without could be a lot greater.
Phones break. Laptops crash. Hard drives fail.
The “blue screen of death” happens.
Don't procrastinate on backing up your stuff.
Don't pay other people to get your own life back.
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