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Hey there listeners. It’s Brett Molina. Welcome back to Talking Tech.
We recently celebrated World Backup Day. So, of course, that’s naturally a really good time to think about how are you backing up all your important stuff? Like your photos, videos, you have really important documents, where are you keeping those? So, that way in case you need them something really important happens you know where to find them.
My colleague and Talking Tech’s favorite Canadian. Marc Saltzman writes about this in a story that you can read on tech.usatoday.com Five Easy Ways to Protect Your Data on World Backup Day. You’re, obviously, listening to this on a Saturday and is not World Backup Day, that was on my March 31st, but still. He breaks down the different options, pros and cons, everything you need to know about the best ways to backup your important information.
Let’s start with the external hard drive. If you have a ton of files it’s a really good option because you can get a ton of space and it’s fairly affordable. Marc mentions a two terabyte external drive for as low as $59. So, you can get a lot of space. And it’s great if you have a ton of videos, if you have a ton of photos. A lot of these drives are also portable, so you really don’t need to plug them in anywhere. Some are desktop as well. I used to have a desktop one for my iMac along to time ago where it just sits next to the computer, and you just plug it in. Super useful. Again, if you have really big files it’s great because they hold a lot of space and, you don’t have to spend as much.
The problem is they’re a little bit slower compared to some other drives and they could die over time. I had this happen where my backup drive died on me. And so, if you don’t have another spot to backup, that’s not great. So, definitely that’s something to think about, if you’re considering getting external drive.
There’s also solid state drives, which are nicer. They move faster, you can get to everything quicker, and you can also upload things faster. Two big issues with those though, are they are a little pricier. And they don’t tend to hold as many files. You can still hold quite a bit of stuff on there, but they’re not going to hold as much as, say, an external hard drive. So, that’s something to keep in mind as well.
Other benefits of the solid state drive too, is that they’re more durable. So, they can take a little bit of a beating. If you’re taking them on the go different places, that’ll be a big use for them.
One other option that Marc mentions too is cloud backup. There’s, obviously, a ton of different services out there. You have Google Drive, iCloud, OneDrive. I recently went to Google Drive for my photos, really good service you. And, again, everything’s right there. The thing I liked about it, especially with Google Drive, is on the photos stuff you can access your photos anywhere. So, basically, it’s all backed up on the cloud and you can just get to those photos anywhere. If you’re looking for an old photo, you can get to your phone right away, pull it right up. So, that’s really nice. It also frees up some space, say, in email, your computer, wherever this may be.
One thing to think of, obviously, when it comes to cloud services is it’s a subscription. So, you’re going to be paying a subscription fee depending on how much storage you get. You only get a few gigabytes for free. So, it’s really not a lot. They’re really pushing you to pay. You look at iCloud, for example, you can get 50 gig for 99 cents a month, all the way up to two terabytes, that’s $10 a month. And you need to be on the web to get to all your files too so that’s something to think about. Are you okay spending $10 a month for however long to back up your files? If you need that much space? That’s something to consider if you’re thinking about that.
There’s other options too. You have USB sticks, SD cards. That’s nice if you need to move a few quick things from across different places, like if you have a handful of really important documents, you can use a USB stick, or an SD card. And that’s another way and also, an affordable way to kind of quickly move stuff around, if you need to.
You can read more of Marc’s tips, and learn more about kind of your best options for storing data, and backing it up by visiting his column on tech.usatoday.com.
Listeners let’s hear from you. Do you have any comments, questions, show ideas, any tech problems you want us to try to address? You can find me on Twitter @BrettMolina23, please don’t forget to subscribe and rate us, or leave a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, anywhere you get your podcasts. You’ve been listening to Talking Tech. We’ll be back tomorrow with another quick hit from the world of tech.
