Information Value and the need of a Backup
I believe that the majority of us like computer users can recognize how painful a backup can be. Those days no matter what kind of user you are, your information it's one of your most important assets.
It's unbelievable how in just 2 decades computers become indispensable on our lives. Computers turn ourselves dependents of our own digital resources after a click on the < Save > button to store our data. At this moment we start to think about protecting something.
After we start this path, it's a certain point when the question comes up: Which the best way to protect our information?
Today there exist a lot of options to save our information: Cloud Drives (Google Drive, Dropbox, One Drive, etc.), External Hard Drives, NAS, SAN; and others. Those are just a few of the existing alternative to copy and protect our data.
If we think about our safety information, we can figure out how important it is. It's priceless. I can't even imagine losing my data. Like and Software Engineer, and like a user that expend long hours in front of a computer, my information it's extremely valuable for me.
Out of the cost or software choice, we need to understand the value of our information. If we can understand how valuable it is, any backup alternative it's not going to turn into an issue, instead, becomes into a long term investment.
Which the best way to protect our information?
External Drive
From my personal point of view, like a Mac user, I need to talk about one of the most amazing and powerful native backup solutions existed onto any OS: Time Machine.
Like any enterprise level solution, Time Machine takes advantage of creating a full first image of the hard drive and then create several incremental copies periodically to save any change reflected on the system from the last backup. A piece of Art!
With just 3 or 4 clicks, you can add any network or external drive like a backup for your Mac. It's important to understand that this solution needs an external unit to work, and similar to our computer or equipment, a physical device are vulnerable to the same physical problems, robe or missing.
If you don't want to take this risk, it's important to know other backup alternatives. In this case, cloud solutions are frequently more safely and provide robust infrastructure to save our data, setting a corporate level solution to the general public.
But, find an affordable Cloud solution can be a headache. A bad choice could turn into an expensive solution. Understanding our backup environment and their cost save us a considerable amount of money.
Cloud Storage
After several months of research and testing of some of the existing alternatives, I found a personal choice, budget and friendly: BackBlaze . Their schema it's simple, unlimited space, unlimited bandwidth and you can save ALL your information, including external hard drives. (This is just too good!)
Different from Time Machine, this solution it's compatible with Windows and macOS. This is because all the information it's synchronized through a client that direct the backup, making the backup process really easy.
Here it's a comparison table with all the delivery services from BackBlaze and other backup systems:
BackBlaze | Carbonite Prime | iDrive | |
---|---|---|---|
Price | USD$ 60/Year | USD$ 149.99/Year | USD$ 69.50/Year |
All User Data Backed Up By Default - No Picking And Choosing | Si | No | No |
Back Up Files Of Any Size | Si | No | No |
External USB Drive Backup Included | Si | Si | Si |
Rapid Data Recovery via Hard Drive | Si | Si | No |
Account Security With 2FV - SMS & Authenticator Apps | Si | No | No |
Threaded Upload Speed | Si | No | No |
Private Encryption Key | Si | No | Si |
If you like more information about BackBlaze vs others backup services, visit "Best Online Backup Service" .
If you compare the functionalities of the Sync Client with others Cloud Drives, the prices of BackBlaze it's considerable small:
BackBlaze | DropBox | iCloud | Google Drive | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Price | USD$ 60/Year/Unlimited | Free/2GB USD$ 99/Year/1TB |
USD$ 11.88/Year/50GB USD$ 35.88/Year/200GB USD$ 119.99/Year/2TB |
USD$ 19.99/Year/100GB USD$ 99.99/Year/1TB |
Conclusion
Personally, I had a mixed backup environment making a local backup with Time Machine and a Cloud Backup with BackBlaze . Several hard drive failures and loss of critical information make me understand how valuable it's information to me. There's not a perfect schema, you could choose any backup solution based on your budget and requirements. My only recommendation it's that one drive it's not a solution, but it is the only affordable to you, it's better than nothing.
If you like to use BackBlaze , you can visit the follow links base on your profile: