Friday, March 16, 2012

Online Storage Backup

Not the most captivating title I admit, but today's post isn't geared towards entertaining you.  It's geared towards giving that nudge or reminder that some of you out there might need TO ACT.  If you are like me, you are very good at keeping track of everything you NEED to do, but perhaps not quite as good as actually getting them done.  Finding ways to back-up my computer (most importantly all the thousands of pictures I take) has been on my list for some time now.  To save you the troubles of having to move it each week to your new 'to-do' list for months on end like I did, I'm going to try and convince you that it's super easy to TAKE ACTION TODAY! 

For years I've been having a nagging feeling that I needed to back up my pictures somehow.  I always heard of people's horror stories of their computers crashing and they lost everything.  I've heard it said that it's not IF your computer crashes, but WHEN.  That would devastate me - especially since I stopped scrapbooking for my older 2 kids about 6 or 7 years ago, and never scrapped a thing for my 2 younger children.  Not to mention that I've only made one blog book so far and that was for 2007 (the other years are on my 'to-do' list - hee hee).  So literally all of my photos of my kids growing up, our family vacations, photo shoots, etc are sitting on my computer and I would have absolutely nothing if I lost them.  I would be freaking out way worse than this lady is

I had an external hard drive but rarely remembered to hook it up and back up my files.  Plus, I knew this wasn't the grand solution.  If something happened to my house, my external backup would be destroyed as well.  I also often toyed with the thought of backing up my pictures on CDs and leaving a copy at my parents' house.  But quite frankly, that seemed daunting.  I take A LOT of pictures.  It seemed way too time consuming and I was way too busy putting off everything else on my to-do lists to have time to do that

So long story short, a few months ago the nagging feeling within me was just getting too strong to ignore.  I started seriously thinking that it was a foreboding to my computer crashing or something (let's hope not - fingers crossed), so I tried to take it serious this time.  I got online and looked into online storage sites.  I'll warn you now that there are TONS of them.  After spending a few minutes checking out some of them, I quickly came to realize that many of them were very similar and that there were a lot of good ones out there.  So I stopped stressing out about finding 'the perfect one' because I could tell most of them seemed really good.  Fast forward 2 months later, and I FINALLY got back around to that item on my list and actually picked a company and started backing up my computer.  Hey don't judge me too hard because my procrastination actually paid off and they offered me an even better deal (I think they were giving up on me and desperate to get me to finish signing up).

In the end, I chose Just Cloud.com (which seemed identical in every single way - even the webpage designs - to My PC Backup and ZipCloud - I've also heard great things about Carbonite) and signed up for a 2 year agreement for only $35.  You can choose whether to pay monthly, bi-annually, yearly or every 2 years, etc.  And the great thing is that if you decide you don't like them after any amount of time, you get back whatever money you didn't use up yet (like if I quit in 6 months, I'd get back the remaining 18 months worth of money I paid).   Many of these online storage sites also offer FREE backups if you only need a little bit of storage space (like my husband who just wants to back up documents and stories he's written).  Then you get to choose exactly what folders and areas you want it to backup.  It's lovely.   However, I will warn you that the first, initial backup will take
F-O-R-E-V-E-R!! 
I'm talking a few days at least - maybe more if your laptop keeps turning itself off like mine because it's getting too hot.

So Google online storage backup sites, close your eyes and pick one on your screen, and then SIGN UP TODAY and start backing up those precious files!  The peace you will feel will be amazing (especially if you've had to endure constant nagging inside your head for years)! 



(***Sidenote:  Junk in their Trunk is not endorsing Just Cloud.com or any other specific online backup storage sites, just simply informing you about how easy these companies are to use and how important it is to have a backup!)


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9 comments:

utahmobilehomes.net said...

I have used Carbonite for the last year and I love the peace of mind it gives me. Worth every cent!

Heidi said...

You write this post for me didn't you!!! I needed this push to make me just DO IT!! Thanks for the info!!

Jamie said...

thanks for this post! we just lost all the data on our external hard drive... ALL the pics from our kids since they were born!!! It would cost $1400 for us to recover the data, but we don't have that kind of money. We're looking into another method of backing up our photos... I will never trust another external hard drive!

Anonymous said...

This is such a great resource that you are providing and you give it away for free. I love seeing websites that understand the value of providing a quality resource for free. online backup services

Unknown said...

Yes it is super important to back up your computer. Many years ago ours crashed and the info was not recoverable, my husband paid like $300 to a company that tried, they told him he could send it to another place for $3000 - insane I thought. Anyway mostly what we lost was his music that he had composed on line. I do not think we lost any pictures as we had them on disk then too, however now we do not have the disks, they are on one line.
There are many ways to backup your data with the cloud systems seeming to be one of the most popular at this time. Anyhow as long as its backed up its good . Take care, I enjoyed your blog very much. Have a great summer.

Ruby said...

A computer is just a piece of gadget that does not guarantee full protection over your files. This is why it's really crucial to have a backup of your files. For me, using an external hard drive alone is not enough to make my worries go away. I always see to it that I’ve backed up my files on cloud storage.

Ruby Badcoe

Unknown said...

There are lots of cloud storage software right now, that it's really just a matter of taking our pick. The point being that we should USE them. Use online storage, and never hesitate. Whether it's shareware, or licensed software, there is really no reason to hesitate. Most people are so wrapped up in the physicality of data product, that they fixate on hardware such as external drives. But external drives are finite: that one's gonna be one Terrabyte forever, whereas the net is GROWING. It is much better to invest on cyberspace, and to believe and trust its capabilities.

Scality.com

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Your experience only proves that there really is a need to have a data storage back up. Moreover, if you have tons of important files that you need to save, USBs and external hard drives will give an assurance that you have other copies. Having those would also be helpful when you can't access your online server or cloud storage while you're offline or updating your new computer.

Erick Brooks @ Ripple Web

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