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Yes, with unlimited budget, you can spend hundreds a month and do a proper backup and cloud everything. But for those that live in the real world of budgets and bandwidth caps here is how you do it:
Google does so many things on so right. Including backuping on the cheap:
It creates a folder called “Google Drive”. Now move all your important documents in the cloud.
Caveat: 15GB capped space. $20/years gets you 100GB.
2. Download Google Photo Backup
The application lets you select what folders to backup to the cloud.
Caveat: It’s lossy @ 16MP & 1080P in “High Quality” mode, but unlimited. @ Original it counts towards your Google Drive Quota. Change those High Quality/Original settings here.
This will upload your selected music folders to the cloud (up to 50,000 songs is free with Google Music (Click “Add music)
Caveat: It’s lossy. (like mp3s)
4. Do the RAID Math.
You can have two hard drives that are mirrored 24/7 without you having to do anything after you set it up. So when a hard drive fails, your computer will notify you and keep going on as if nothing has happened. You’ll replace the failed drive and it’ll resync as you continue to whistle along with zero down time. Here is the RAID 1 math:
When (not if, but when) your HDD fails, this is what’s going to happen: You’re going to freak out a bit, but oh well, you’re going to have to take it out of the case, find another computer and check the warranty status and start the RMA process if you are lucky enough to have it under warranty. Now you’re going to have to wait for the RMA to be approved, and or go through some hoops running diagnostic software to get some error codes before they’ll allow you to RMA it. You wait a few days and once they approve the RMA, you have to ship it back to them. Then you wait a few more days and they receive your drive, and wait another day or two, and they’ll ship you out a refurbished one. Wait a few more days for it to come, and now you have your hard drive back. Now you have to find your windows install CD/USB +key and reinstall windows, start downloading all the updates, then you set it all up the way you like it, then you install all your apps, then you download then reinstall all of your games, then you set each of them up the way you like it, maybe you loose a lot of settings or saves games, oh well, then you restore anything form the external, then are all back up and running. Wasn’t that EXHAUSTING just reading it? That was a a lot of downtime and hassle, don’t you think? SO, Now here is the question: was all that downtime and work WORTH the cost of another single identical hard drive to you? Now you can choose. If not, then it’s all good. But I think your time alone, even if you make minimum wage, is worth it, but you know best for your situation. In RAID 1 (mirror) when a HDD fails, you are just notified in windows that 1 HDD failed, you pop it out, send it back, and put in the replacement and it syncs up again. Zero downtime. And you never have to remember to backup to external, which, let’s be honest, you’ll forget to do that every day. And an internal HDD is less than an external.
5. External Hard Drive.
You may want to add an external hard drive to your RAID or computer setup to backup everything that won’t fit in your free cloud.
Throw it in a media fire save or take it with you.
You also may want to head on over and make sure your proper Windows Re-install procedures are in place as well.
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