Can we talk about this?

Same!

I used EHDs for all my stuff. I have 2 back ups for my important stuff. And my hubby has something that backs up our stuff each night.

I keep my psd files until I get my pages printed.

I'm not good at cleaning up. I sort of do what @wvsandy does. I tend to only use recent downloads or at least kits that I've downloaded in the last year or so.

 

sorry @Kat but I save in TIFF with layers, like ferdy and I get the same half size result. not sure why it doesn't work like that for you

 

Well, all my scrap stuff is in one folder - then subdivided. So my supplies, and my finished layouts, are 674 GB. And since it's all together, I'm not calculating out how much is supplies versus layouts.
My photos are in a different folder. And it's manageable. LOL! Only 1.14 TB.

I do have all my stuff on an EHD, some of it on random EHD's that I outgrew, and then all backed up to Backblaze. My brother's had a house fire recently, and so far, they haven't been able to retrieve most of the photos, so it reiterated to me why I have a cloud backup too.

I know Backblaze gave me a huge quote time when I started, and it took less in the end. But with the size of your files, I can see why it would take forever! I remember reading about some cloud storage that let you send in an EHD with your files to seed your backup. I don't know if that still exists, but that could be an option if you wanted cloud backup.

 

You're not alone! I feel like in a way, I'm a digital hoarder.. in real life, I do have a lot of stuff but not to the point of them giving me as much headaches as digital stuff. I have CDs containing old freebies and kits that I purchased many, many years back, and several EHDs of more recent products and layouts. It feels overwhelming but I don't have the time and energy to sort them out yet. Hopefully one day. Soon.

 

As this thread shows, seems like many of us have lots of files. Add me to the list!

I have BB set to back up the two newest of my 4 current EHDs as well as my desktop--which is where new stuff goes before I back it up onto the EHDs. And my two newest EHDs don't have all of my pre-2015 kits. (It has all of my LOs, photos, music, docs, etc...it's just old kits that I've let drop off.) I realized that I wasn't grabbing older product; instead, I was buying new. Why keep backing up old items if I'm not going to use them? And that also helps with the "digital cleanup": I don't have to spend time going through files anymore because there's not much to purge before copying to a new EHD. I'm sure some older files are on there because I grabbed them for a page a year or so ago. But that's the thing: if I'm going to use an older product then of course I want to keep backing it up. But if I'm not using it, then what's the point of continually adding it to new EHDs? That's more mess I'll need to deal with down the line. (Plus eventually I'd have to buy reeeeeeaaaalllly big EHDs to house everything lol!)

 

I store jpeg LOs in smugmug and last yr started storing phone photos there too. I store my digi files on 2 externals. I periodically go into the folders and delete older stuff that I know I really don't need or will use much. I used to find it hard to purge but once I started, it got easier and now I (almost) don't cringe when I do it. I've got a much better system than I used to. I can't tell you how many times I had crashes and lost so many photos and files.

 

I have been digital since 2010 and most all of the designers I have files for are no longer creating. I have gotten rid of quite a bit.

 

Let's not talk about it....oh my! I might be a lot worse than that.

 

@Kat - here's the settings for saving as a layered tiff file. The secret to getting smaller files is using compression. So make sure you save with layers and then select the LZW and zip compressions. HTH

 

@Kat I tried iDrive years ago - about 2015. It told me that it would take forever to back anything up, so I choose to use it on a laptop without Backblaze and see how it worked. I only had it backup 4 folders, because everything else was on my other computer backed up by Backblaze. Well, in the 2 months I used it, the laptop crashed, and I tried to recover my files. It told me a whole folder of layouts was backed up, but there were only 4 layouts that I could restore. Unfortunately, I didn't have those backed up anywhere else, so I lost them. Fortunately, it wasn't a lot (about 40), and I still had the photos so I could redo them. It also didn't backup 1 of the other folders at all. I went back to Backblaze. That was my experience. I'm sure there are others that are happy with iDrive.

I also learned to check and make sure my backup is working the way I expect it to! Good lesson to learn with minimal loss.

 

I haven't used iDrive but just wanted to mention that BB doesn't have a size limit and I think the price is $60/year or $6/m. (I do the year because I'm happy with BB and I like saving that $12.) But maybe iDrive has features BB doesn't?

 

Looking at the comparison between iDrive and Backblaze, the one thing that I noticed right away is that items are never deleted from iDrive even if you have removed it from its original location on your computer. You have to delete it manually from iDrive. You know Backblaze deletes stuff after 30 days if it has been removed from your computer. Also a physical data shipment from iDrive is free once a year for personal plans.

I had never heard of iDrive and was curious about it so I also checked out the comparisons for several of the options on the iDrive website.

 

Yes I know that. Also, you can pay a higher plan to have them keep it permanently with Backblaze if you want. Personally, I don't. If I delete a file, I meant to. Yes, I know that some may accidentally delete entire photo folders, I've seen it. Part of my process is to double check my photos monthly, so I would catch this. I also have a note about how much data is backed up, so I can compare. Also, it's why I have a multi-backup plan.

The free drive is cool. I know when I had to restore with Backblaze I paid upfront and then got my refund when I sent it back. Cheryl kept the restored drive because it was easier for her.

Backblaze isn't the right answer for everyone. IDrive might fit your needs better. Other people use apple storage because it fits their process. As long as it works for you, your process, and protects your files, yeah!!!! I love hearing that people are backing up regardless of the service they use.

 

@Kat does iDrive require you to purchase it all upfront? $7 isn't bad to try it and see how fast it'll upload your stuff. I'm pretty sure that was the trial price I tried it at.