"Everything worked well, the directories disappeared from the local hard drive, but they were still available on Dropbox's website. However, writing on Medium, urn recalled that the Dropbox client crashed during the initial sync operation, so he unsynced his photo folders by hand. He used Dropbox's Smart Sync feature (only available on Professional accounts), which is supposed to store your files in the cloud, and download them on demand. This is another place where it's tempting to rely on cloud services, but here's a cautionary tale: Apify founder Jan urn lost 8,000 photos after he uploaded them to Dropbox, then tried to remove them from his local hard disk, to free up space. However, this is normally on a "best-effort" basis for safety, speed and convenience it's a good idea to keep local backups as well. The good news is that offsite backup is easy: there are plenty of cloud-based backup providers who will, for a modest subscription, handle everything for you. The last point is particularly important: no matter how diligently you backup your system, if you store your media right next to your PC then it will be equally susceptible to fire, flood and theft another reason why your backups might not be as safe as you'd hope. When it comes to backup, the standard advice is that you should keep three copies of anything that matters, in two different formats, with at least one of them off-site an approach known as the 3-2-1 strategy. Syncing services should be used for just that syncing and backup left to tools designed with that task in mind. Similar issues apply to Google Drive, iCloud, OneDrive and so forth. Some backup services even offer an authentication service that can be used to prove that a certain file was created or edited on a certain date.Īlthough we've picked on Dropbox here, it's by no means an outlier. Not only is this essential for data security, it also provides a helpful audit trail so you can track the development of your projects. A dedicated backup service should allow you to recover files that were deleted years ago, or step back through a complete history of changes to a document, from its original creation to the present day. It also still doesn't count as a proper backup system. You can extend the window to 120 days by upgrading to a Dropbox professional account, but it's expensive: it costs 199 annually, or 19.99 per month. So while Dropbox can rescue you from short-term problems, it's no use when you need to restore a document that was changed or deleted a few months ago. The catch is that changes and deleted files are only stored for 30 days, after which they're purged. Find the file you want to resurrect and click restore. This feature can be a real life-saver: to recover a deleted file, you can just log in through the browser, click Files, then click Deleted files in the sidebar. Not only does Dropbox duplicate your files onto every computer you own, it also keeps its own set of backups so you can roll back to an earlier version of a file, or bring deleted items back from oblivion. But if you're relying on a service like this to save your skin in the case of an IT emergency, you're running a serious risk. Cloud-syncing services are an easy, effective way to keep vital files updated across several machines. Let's clear one thing up right away: synchronisation isn't backup. And that should be a big concern: small businesses can't afford to have things go wrong when it comes to backup, and home users stand to lose irreplaceable documents, photos and videos if their backup system lets them down. Support business continuity by building a holistic emergency planĮven if you're trying to do everything right, your chosen backup method might not be as comprehensive or bulletproof as you thought. The essential guide to cloud-based backup and disaster recovery
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |