Back Up Your Data!

I’ve become a fan of YouTube productivity guru Thomas Frank recently. I’m always looking for ways to make my everyday life more efficient and effective, and his videos are both informative and entertaining. During one of his videos, Thomas tasks about backing up your data as part of your digital data organization strategy.

Thomas makes some great points, but he also mentions backing up to EITHER a local drive OR a cloud backup service. Personally, I believe you should actually backup both locally/on-site AND to the cloud using the 3-2-1 backup method:

• 3 copies of your data (original and two backups)
• 2 different backup media types (ex. USB external drive and Backblaze)
• 1 copy off-site (the Backblaze cloud backup).

The cloud backup should be a service dedicated to backing up your data, so Google One, iCloud Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and other sync services don’t count. Both Thomas and I use Backblaze, so definitely check that service out, but you should also look at options such as Carbonite for your cloud backup needs.

Also, keep that USB drive plugged in and use the sync software which came with it to back up constantly. There’s no reason to stop your backup process at any time or at any level.

Finally, be sure to use strong passwords and, where possible, two factor or multi factor authentication on your cloud sync and backup accounts. Backblaze, for example, gives you the option to utilize an authentication app like Google Authenticator to generate a random numeric code you need to enter along with your credentials when logging in.

How do you keep your data backed up? Let me know in the comments below.