As a former IT technician, I’ve seen the perils of hard drive crashes, the devastating effects, and the costly aftermath.
Hard drive recovery is not a simple process and it can cost thousands upon thousands of dollars. I’ve seen people lose years of their work because somewhere between the home and the office, their hard drive decided to give them the finger and call it quits.
When you’re on the road, your laptop gets used, abused, shaken, and dropped. That’s why it’s important to have a good one. Today’s average hard drive is made up of many, tiny moving parts and, the fact is, the more use and abuse these moving parts receive, the more likely it is that your hard drive is going to break, fail, or CRASH.
On top of this, there’s always the possibility that your laptop, camera, hard drives, or memory sticks will get lost or stolen.
The uncertainties of the road rollover onto your possessions and leave the fate of your electronics, and your data, entirely up to chance.
First, Store Large Files on an External Drive
As a traveling photographer, I have hundreds of GB worth of photos, and they simply won’t fit on my laptop’s hard drive. When you run out of space on your hard drive, the best thing you can do is transfer your large files to an external hard drive like the LaCie Rugged Mini, my preferred choice of hard drive when I’m traveling.
Now, whenever I sit down to edit photos, whether I’m in bed, at a coffee shop or riding a plane or train, I just plug in my external drive and I have access to everything.
Always Keep a Second Backup in the Cloud
A second backup is vital. What if your external hard drive crashes? You always want more than one backup, and ideally in two totally different places, stored on different mediums.
Many people use services like Dropbox or Google Drive to manually backup their files, but this is not the most convenient or efficient way to do it. You’re only backing up some important documents, rather than your entire machine, and if you have a lot of photos or movies, you’ll quickly run out of space.
It’s kind of like using a wrench to put in a screw—it’s simply the wrong tool for the job.
To back up your data completely, securely, and efficiently, I recommend Backblaze. It’s been an integral part of my data backup solution for about ten years, and I haven’t since found a service that was easier, better, or cheaper.
Backblaze continuously backs up everything on both your computer and your external hard drive. Using minimal system resources, it runs in the background, continuously backing up your files, ensuring every backup is always current.
As long as you’re connected to the internet, Backblaze uses a secure connection to keep everything on your computer backed-up in the cloud, accessible from anywhere.
You never have to worry about backing up because Backblaze is fully automated. Just set it up once, and then you can forget all about it.
Access Files from Your Mobile Device
Not only does Backblaze keep your files backed up, but they have a mobile app which allows you to access your backups on the go. As long as you’re connected to the internet on your phone, you can access your entire data backup, meaning you have access to every single file on your computer.
Easy Data Recovery
Should something go wrong, you can download your backed-up data for free. Alternatively, Backblaze will mail you a USB stick or hard drive for a nominal fee.
And, because Backblaze is always connected, if your computer gets stolen, there is a mapping option so you can hunt your machine down, and find the actual address where your computer is residing!
At $5 per month, Backblaze is shockingly cheap. This is a very small price to pay for a full backup, not to mention the security of knowing that your data is secure.
Because of Backblaze, I can now travel anywhere in the world knowing that all my photos, documents, movies, music and more are entirely safe.
More Information
Name: Backblaze
Cost: $5/mo
Notes: Backblaze offers a free trial, making it really easy to try before you decide! Check it out now, before it’s too late.
10 Responses
I wrote my own cloud and can create .txt files, zip up my photoshop files and store them htere, etc-etc plus a portal I wrote for me to work from. The only file on my netbook is a plain text file that I zero out regularly. Found it’s the best solution.
Many thanks for the tip. I’ve often considered the merits v cost of cloud back up. I use a hard drive network back up at home. Yet as you say this is only of use once I’m at home. This option is certainly one I will investigate further.
Well, how much did your hard drive cost, and what’s the lifespan on said drive? At 5 bucks a month, you’re paying way less, and for more storage!
Hard drive was about £60-£70 and I’ve used it for more than 2 years. So I guess I’m up compared to online storage. I can just only access once I’m at home though.
I definitely need something like this. I’m ashamed to say that nothing of mine is backed up! Must get on it asap.
Hey Jeremy,
Awesome! Thanks for the info. I’ll go check them out. It will certainly ease my mind while traveling.. just in case my laptop should get stolen or break down. Thanks!
Q: What do you recommend for backing up websites?
I’m at HostGAtor with WP site. My site is ‘supposedly’ backed up every week…but when I go check I find out there’s some issue and it hasn’t been backed up at all! Scary. I NEED TO fix that asap!
thanks! Cheers, Lash
It’s great even if you’re not traveling. All your backups are automated and you never have to worry about a thing!
As for websites, I use a managed hosting service which does daily backups. To keep your entire site backed up, you’ll have to use the one supplied by HostGator. If you’re using WordPress, you can use WP Backup to keep your database backed up!
Great post! I manually back up every fortnight onto 2 different hard drives – a little obsessive maybe?
Nope, not obsessive! It’s your data and, once it’s gone, it’s gone. It’s important to keep your files backed up! You should consider something like Backblaze, though, so you can set it and forget it. I never have to worry about backups because it’s already done for me!
Ill have to try it out sometime (when I have a minute to scratch my head!!!) Usually back up evry sunday when i dont have access to the internet