Personal Back Ups!

I have been doing this backup/archive work for almost 20 years and I can't go a week without some acquaintance asking me about backing up their personal data. It used to be large portable USB drives were the best option but as home internet connections have increased there throughput to the point of some offering giga-bit speeds, it makes more sense to use a cloud based backup provider. This article is based off of my experience and I only offer my opinion here so take it for what it is, but I recommend everyone look into a good backup solution or else you could loose all the important memories you have accumulated as life has become more digital. 

So what do I use to protect my memories? I used to use Dropbox, then when Google Drive became available I used it, and then I started using Microsoft SkyDrive now known as OneDrive. I began to exclusively use OneDrive several years ago when I was able to get more than the paltry 5 - 10GB that the others allowed. At one point I freely acquired 100GB by using Bing and gathering Bing points. I am cheap and didn't want to pay for my cloud space. I had portable hard drives with my data but knew it wasn't the solution. So when my free OneDrive space was due to expire I was offered an Office365 family plan with 1TB of space for up to 5 people in the family. With my wife and I each having 128GB iphone that my wife has actually filled with video and pictures during trips, I knew it was the best solution for us. Not only did I get 1TB for each of us, it could cover our personal home computer and our daughter phone also. Oh, and did I mention it comes with access to download Office to our home and daughters laptop?  All this is good but it would be useless if the OneDrive app was terrible. Truthfully, I find it quite easy to use. Microsoft has continued to fix bugs and add features it has become a great tool I use almost daily. 

I write this article because it's important you think about how you will protect memories. Sure you can upload to Google Photo's or put all your items on Facebook, but each has it's own drawbacks. Google Photo's does not keep the photo at its original resolution, and Facebook is not designed to be a backup solution. I have lost personal photos and documents from when I was younger due to losing them during moves or becoming damaged by mishandling. I will never get them back, had I scanned/digitzed them I would have been able to keep them safe. I also understand that nothing is 100% protected or safe, but by putting my files in the cloud they are more safe than on a portable drive or sitting in a drawer.