I had a hard drive crash and lost the first few years of my son's life. I have some photos left from my film camera but need to transfer them digitally. I had an EHD fail in the fall but the good news is I had all my photos and quite a bit of digi stuff already moved over to my network drive, I did lose all my 2013 layouts and some recent digi stuff. My phone is backed up to Dropbox and i don't clear my camera cards until photos are stored safely in two places. Having computer issues as of yesterday and the only things I didn't have backed up were 3 YIR 2014 pages and 4 MOC challenges, so if she's toast not too bad off a loss.
I back up regulary, my pictures are on a DVD, on my pc and on our home-server. So storage plenty to back-up my things on pc and server
I'll be bringing my computer in for servicing in the next month or so and then once I get it home and reload everything, I want to try an online backup service. Between photos and digi stuff, I would be devastated to lose it all (which I did a couple of years ago).
I sure wish that I had started backing up years ago...I have lost a few EHDs...with all my life on it. Did I learn? Nope!!! But after reading this and another thread, I went ahead and purchased CrashPlan...now my laptop and EHD are saved morning. I took the plunge because I can't imagine losing all my scrapbooking and photos yet again.
watching closely - I think I'm going to use two EHD's . . . keeping both current at all times (well within two weeks/month of each other)
I only use online backup for my pictures - but after another stupid hard drive just failed I've got a good online backup on my list of things to do this week!
If you do decide to go this route, you can use CrashPlan to keep them synced for free. It will do it automatically every time there's a change. No need to remember to do anything every month or whatever. Though I do still highly recommend the online backup as there is no size limit and it's very affordable.
Lorry, I now have VISA!!!! Yay yay!!! I allready bought me the synchronization for my outlook agenda with android apps. And now I wanted to take Crashplan. But I saw there is a month of free trial you can take. Do you think that would be even good as the paid version? I don't want to take it and having to change things after I go to the 'paid'zone. And which way of 'backing up' would you recommend? I mean: I want to be structured from the beginning... My main goal of 2015 is to get organized!!!! What are you backing up on Crashplan? Photos, scrapstash, documents, ...? My husband is a bit scared to back up personal documents on a cloud... Privacy issues etc... And how do you set it up? I guess it shall be possible to edit how the upload happens? Is there also a synchronization possibility? I know you are a pro at Crashplan, so spill it girl, I'm taking everything in!!!
I did the free trial first and it is exactly the same as the paid. You will not need to change anything after paying! I back up absolutely everything. My entire internal hard drive and my entire EHD. CrashPlan protects your privacy. You can tell it exactly which folders and files to do. What I did was initially set it up to only back up my photos, since that was the most important and I wanted it done first. When that backup was complete, I added everything else. Once everything is uploaded the first time, it keeps everything synchronized after that.
Oh, that sounds really easy. Can you also tell exactly to synchronize only every 2 days or does it happen automatically you are online? And when you delete something on your laptop and the sync is on, does it mean it's deleted on Crashplan to and you can't get it back there?
You can set how often it backs up anywhere from instantly to daily. You can also set whether it deletes your files or not. The default is to never delete them. Actually, in my original post, I said I had accidentally deleted something and then used CrashPlan to restore it.
Smart, smart girl!!!! I tend to forget to back up, but I don't keep much on my laptop. All the photos & kits are on an external drive (I'd like to get another one as a back up to my ehd) so I feel pretty safe. I do need to learn to back up my ACDsee though. Sad I lost all my tags!
I definitely back up! EHD and also Backblaze backing up my EHD and my pc. Its like my extra little insurance policy. Curious on differences between Backblaze and Crashplan. This is the first time I have heard of Crashplan. I originally backed up using two EHDs - they mirrored. However, realized from a friend's experience that it wasn't as safe - they had a housefire and EHDs were both gone - no time to grab them. Honestly my family, pets, and memories are the most important part of my house, so I figured I had better look at an additional option.
I decided not to wait until I get my HD wiped out (I've been losing a gig of C drive every 4-5 days, don't know why and I'm going to run out of space, so am going to get it cleaned out and reinstall everything). I started Backblaze yesterday and if my HD hangs in there I'll hopefully get all my files backed up.
If you have a lot of data to backup, I strongly recommend Crash Plan's seeded backup service.I had tons of data to backup, so my initial backup would have taken a really long time if I didn't use the seed service. It was an extra $125, but they mail a hard drive to you, you put all the data on it that you want to be backed up, then you send it back. When they get it, they will send you an email and you log into your crashplan account and all the data is already there. Then, you just have to backup any new data. It worked perfectly and I wasn't waiting forever for that initial backup.
I backed up with BackBlaze for almost three years- was so very happy with them- great- One day a couple of years ago I think it was 2013- a pop up window came up when I turned the computer on, telling me that the back ups had been halted- and they were sending me an email with instructions- The email said my data had been compromised- they never explained how (and I did ask in each & everyone of the emails I sent) but they said they had to stop back ups. They wanted me to uninstall and install again- Because of many things that happened to me in the past, I asked them if they could guide me on the uninstall/install again, via online chat or telephone call or skype- I even offered to call them and pay for the call myself- They were very short about it- "We do not provide such service" kinda, sorry you are so thick and don't know how to use your computer, find your way on your own- which I thought rude to put it in a family language- I told them I would leave- they didn't care- So Trista & Nini told me about Crash Plan, Nini got me a discount voucher- I went to the site, they have online live chat , even before I paid a penny, the guys explained me everything and said they would be with me in every step, no rush, and that if I wanted a voice chat to be on the sure side, they would call me no worries- So I paid, I think is SO worth the money- it works under £40 a year...and they back up my Mac and my two EHDs which is where I move kits and LOs as my Mac is full- This guy who helped me even explained and guided me to go to the preferences so in the first back up my computer didn't go to sleep and they would be backing up constantly...it took over a week, not sure maybe if it wasn't 2 weeks.... (they don't have the thing Katie did of sending you a hard drive as I'm in the UK) I needed to talk to them again to recover a whole folder I deleted by mistake, they also guided me and ALL was there- Then one of my EHDs fried...just was too old I guess ...I didn't know EHDs had a life span.... so I went again- they helped me getting ALL, and all kits & LOs were there again- They are also very nice with people like me -slow, old, not very techie- who keep asking them to repeat things just in case so yes, that is the big difference to me: good customer service-
I have started with the free trial month of Crashplan. Have uploaded the checked and labeled photo folder (this is an ongoing daily process of mine since 2015....) But still, I feel like before I am done, bad things could happen and I need to backup the 'unchecked and unlabeled' photosfolder also untill they have been checked and are in the definite folder. Which way to do that would you propose girls? All these photos are on my EHD, but I think uploading from there will take ages, no? Then again, copying them onto my computer and then having them backupped will take a lot of time too, I know. But it will save in upload time, I had only a little file up untill now and uploading took rather long I believed. And for that, I would have to use a different set of backing up preferences? Because, after the upload I would have to delete the photos from my computer.... How have you done it? Then, some other questions: - I see in the settings somewhere that compression is on, does this mean the files are not in original size? Did you change anything here? - I also saw in the settings something about backupsets... do you know and use this? Thanks for the help in advance ladies! Sorry for the rambling, it's late and I'm tired, but I have been holding these questions in my head for days now and the need to leave now...
Sara: get on the online chat with Crash Plan people- Ask them to guide you on what to click to have it ALL backed up, and for your computer not to go sleep/energy savers settings changed.... I have two EHDs almost full and a huge amount of data in my iMac.... it took under two weeks to back it all up, but I reckon is the best bet- They will ask you what system you are in, and then tell you click this unclick that....they are amazing at customer service!!!!! as it is unlimited...you can have it all backed up, no need to choose what.... they were also great when I lost (deleted by mistake-) a whole 3 years of kits folder.....
