If you are like most people I know, you have numerous files that you value highly, but you do not have a backup. These could be work files, family photos, or just about anything. For most people, these valuable files and assets are very vulnerable.
The mechanical hard disks in (most) all our computers are very prone to problems and are easily the least reliable part in the computer. In a never-ending quest to add capacity for our growing storage needs, manufacturers are always pushing the physical limits, but price pressure has encouraged them to let quality and reliability slide.
Until non-mechanical flash drives are more price competitive (and even after), I highly recommend you do something to backup your files. I've been doing research on this for my own purposes, and I'll be mentioning some solutions I've found.
Dropbox is an online service that allows you to backup and optionally share files in "the cloud". After installing a small client package on your Mac, Windows PC, or Linux PC, Dropbox will automatically keep your "dropbox" folder synchronized providing a great backup solution.
This particular solution is nice, because it provides a few separate features:
- As mentioned above, you can use it for a quick backup, allowing you can recover damaged or deleted files, since it maintains older copies of your files.
- You can use it to sync multiple computers. If you want certain files to always be accessible from your laptop and desktop, you can sync them both with Dropbox.
- You can access your files from anywhere, including your iPhone (or any place you have web access).
- You can configure shared folders to provide other folks access to certain files if needed. No need to e-mail the file, just tell them to come and get it or modify it.
The free version gives you up to 2GB forever, and you can upgrade to 50GB for $99/year or $9.99/month. I've been using the free version to sync a few computers and provide a little extra security for select files.
