This week in Washington, DC we’ve experienced two events that will make the end of this summer quite memorable–a 5.9 earthquake and hurricane Irene. Those events and an imminent two week trip to Europe (It’s all for work. Really.) made me think of data loss and recovery.
When the earthquake hit DC, I was on the third floor of my house. It felt like I was riding the Cyclone at Coney Island. I went downstairs and told my wife to stand in the doorway and ran into the kitchen to grab my daughter. Then we headed out of the house. On the way out I did manage to grab my wallet. My IPhone was in my pocket, but in the rush I left my MacBook Air on the table. Okay, I had my precious family with me. However, if the house had actually caved in, where would I have been from a business standpoint?
Four days later hurricane Irene now knocks at DC’s doorstep as I prepare for the European trip and I ask myself the same general question. What would happen if my computer gets lost, stolen, or damaged on the trip? Could I still complete all, most or any of my presentation workshop tasks? How would I function?
Before the earthquake I was in an okay situation. Most of my important files were on IDisk, the Apple cloud storage area. Using Mac address book, Google Mail, and DropBox, I could access to my contacts, e-mail, and other key files via the internet from anywhere.
As for the European trip, the work files will be on the computer as well as on an 8GB thumb drive. To the cloud storage of ICloud, Dropbox, and Evernote I’ll upload my needed docs, travel plans, slide decks, photos, and PDFs.
On a bigger scale, I need off-site back-up of all of my files, including 160GBs of photos. Having all of my back-up drives in the same location is not really a credible back-up plan against fire or earthquake damage. Thus, back to the clouds.
I’m signing up for Carbonite Online storage. For only $59 a year, they offer unlimited on-line storage that can be accessed from any computer, IPhone, Android or Smart phone. All new files created or modified are automatically synched, backed-up, and available through any web browser or smart phone as you go. With ICloud, DropBox, Evernote, and now Carbonite, all of which have mobile apps, I should be covered. What a deal!
The bottom line is that you have to be prepared for the unexpected. Who knew DC could be rocked by an earthquake? Fortunately, there are many free and low cost options that make back-up easy. Here are the sites for the above mentioned services.
- ICloud (5GBs of free space plus more for photos.)
- Dropbox (2 GBs of free space.)
- Carbonite (Unlimited back-up for $59/year.)
- Evernote (Unlimited, upload 60MB/mo of free space. )
Hey, is that Hurricane Irene at the door? Gotta go.
Charles Greene III Presentation Magician
