I have come to the point where staying with any online cloud based back up won't be an option. General internet speed down here is too slow for the amount of data I have so EHD looks to be the only real option going forward however I went to online backup 4 1/2 years for the 'set and forget' nature of it. How does everyone remember to back up if its not automatic? I know me and know full well I won't remember to do it at all or often enough.
Like you I had to move away from online backup since it disrupted my internet connection a lot. I've had no issues with losing connection since I did away with BB. So for my backups, I have more than 1 EHD. Actually 2 attached at all times. One is strictly used for a backup using the EHD backup software. It happens to be a Western Digital brand EHD. The other one has a copy of my important directories. Whenever I add anything to my digi stash, it immediately gets copied to that EHD. I also have the Windows Backup (File History) set to backup to the 2nd EHD on a daily basis. I chose my most important folders for that. Then I have 2 more EHD's that I use for backups. I do that on a monthly basis. To track all of this I use a spreadsheet to record whenever I do anything. Buy supplies or download photos etc, it goes on the spreadsheet and I have columns that I record the date it got saved to each of the EHD's. So I have copies of my files in multiple places in case of EHD failure.
Is that the brand that was attacked recently? I remember seeing a headline, but I haven't paid enough attention to it.
I think you have to find a way to set a schedule for yourself. Like if you know that you always have time on Sundays, then back up every Sunday. On the first of each month I have a reminder to transfer photos over to my backup EHD. (Because I have online backup, I don't worry about it more than once a month. Otherwise, I would do it more often.) @Karen - You do EHD backup if I recall correctly? How do you remember?
Yes but it was the "My Book Live" device. Mine is a "My Passport". The Live was promoted as a personal cloud device. it had been discontinued before the attack even happened and support had been stopped on the device. I had never even heard of it so I'm suspecting it was out of my price range when it was even offered. Further googling shows it was a NAS device... whatever that is!
I know I was going to do ehd backups when I first started with Backblaze but I think I only managed maybe one or two manual backups for the first month or two because it was a case of when I remembered or had time plus I knew that Backblaze was doing its thing too
Yes, I do my own EHD backups. I shoot for every Friday. I keep my main backup drive at work so it's "off site" and I guess I just remember mostly because it's sitting on my desk and I see it there. I download my iPhone pictures and then do my backup. You could just set a reminder on your phone or in your Google calendar or something like that too. I have a 2nd EHD I back up to at home also, but that lives in my desk drawer so I forget about that one a lot more often. Out of sight, out of mind... I guess my best advice is to have your back up drive visible to remind you.
As Courtney said, setting a reminder really helps. What about writing it on the calendar, or an online calendar reminder? I use my email's calendar so I get an email sent to me 12 hrs before the scheduled event. (ETA Karen must have been typing around the same time as I was!) And, again as Courtney mentioned, I don't do my manual back up as often as I did prior to BB. If we go on vacation (which actually happened, yay vaccines and masks!), then I try to back up asap cuz there are so many photos that I don't want to lose, ya know? Kits I can repurchase. Photos are priceless. It really is a matter of just doing it, and if you don't have BB, you're going to *have* to remember to back up. Maybe you could associate backing up with another computer task? For example, if every Wednesday evening you check email for SOSN sales, before you shop you back up. (This is just an example. You ofc have a much better idea of your computer time than I do lol, and may have a much better option in mind already.)
@Tree City SOSN might just be the perfect time...I was thinking roughly 1st of the month then mid month but think I could get too lax if its that infrequent. It's less about the cost of backblaze in monetary terms but more in the days of frustration getting everything off backblaze - I actually had less of an issue with a far less high spec laptop and iffy internet 4 years ago than I am now....part of it I think may be related to it being school vacation at the moment so higher internet use in general.
yes, I received an email advised me to disconnect my EHD from the internet. That's lovely but how do I access my files now? It was a WD My Book. Thankfully it is not a big drive and most of my other stuff is on the WD Passports that I have.
I only use the EHD to store so once I have used my digi product I downloaded, I move it to the EHD.. also all my photos and the pages I scrap get immediatly uploaded to my EHD.
I back-up the same day of the week as part of my routine on Fridays. I have an external Hard Drive that I back up onto, it's kept in a different place to my laptop.
@littlekiwi Look at your windows backup options because there is an automatic option there to backup the folders/files you want. You could select those that you feel are most important and they would be done automatically. You would still want to do a manual backup on a scheduled basis but this would be another option as long as you have the EHD connected to the computer. Just make it a point to connect it. I have mine set to do certain folders on a daily basis and it will keep each day until I run out of space.
Will look into that more later today, thanks for sharing. I figure I've got about 4 1/2 weeks to figure out my new way of doing things to coordinate with when Backblaze renews. I know for sure I won't be done by Friday this week which is when it renews.
The same way I remember anything--phone reminder or written in my paper planner. They're my external brains, along with my scrapbooks to hold the memories.
