I have spent most of my day hunting for a memory stick (my novel is saved on it) I will no doubt spend the other half of the day tidying up the mayhem I caused looking for it. During my hunt I cursed myself for not saving my work on hard copy (printed version) or even on a virtual Cloud. This got me wonder how many of my fellow writers on the forum use Cloud to save their work. And is it reliable? What are your experiences of Cloud? BTW I now have a hard copy of my work filed away in a save place.
I'm using sugarSynch for cloud storage. This allows more flexible mapping of folders you want to store in the cloud. I'm also using google drive. This allows me to write on any computer or device.
I'm on a Mac and Time Machine, which comes with it, does two things I need. It provides an off machine backup, and it's invisible and automatic. Assuming my machine crashes and burns I can back up everything on it to within an hour of the crash, worst case. It even backs up mail that way if you use the Mac mail program. A 500 gig USB drive gives me about a years worth of backup. I also use Dropbox as offsite insurance.
Like indy5live, I email copies of my work to myself. At the end of any day I work on it, I'll just upload it there. I should probably have a dedicated email account just for this, though, just in case.
I'm using Amazon's Cloud Drive (5 gig capacity). I like it. I have the util installed on my desktop and laptop, and as long as I remember to sync them at the start or end of the day, both computers have my latest wip. I can't access directly from my kindle. I have to jump 1-2 hurdles, but I don't really type much on my kindle. It's a reader and occasional movie display. I would still recommend keeping a copy on your memory stick as a local copy that is off your computer. Really, you can't have enough backups.
Another vote for Dropbox. I love the idea of Time Machine, but I don't have a Mac and haven't looked into the equivalent for Windows.
There's a couple of issues, backup and syncing across a couple of computers to so you can work from multiple locations. The idea of doing manual backups in this day of automation seems archaic. Whether you use Time Machine or some other program, you shouldn't have to manually make backups. A Cloud is good as a backup but better as way to access files from different places to always have the latest version of a MS on hand.
Ever since this thread came out, I'm been using Google and it seems that Oops!Backup is a pretty good Windows version of Time Machine. You can have it back up to a cloud source, or to a USB, essentially your place of choosing. But it's automatic, won't duplicate files, and you can go back through and restore older versions if needed. It does cost a little, but I think it may be worth it. Has anyone here used it, by chance?
Yes, email to yourself or to others is actually a pretty simple solution, which works well! I do that from time to time myself, although I use other backup methods, too. Flash drives, USB drives ...and the one I've come to rely on the most ...hard copy! If files get corrupted, and they can (and did for me once, so all the digital backups were faulty!), it's nice to have good old printouts to fall back on. I haven't felt the need to use Cloud storage, although I suppose the email is the same concept. But for people who don't like doing manual backups, it's probably an excellent idea, as long as you'll always have access to it.
With Dropbox, you don't lose access because it saves local copies of the files on every machine you have Dropbox installed on, as well as cloud copies on the Dropbox server. And when you edit a document on one computer, it syncs the new version across all of them.
That sounds great. I'm old-fashioned enough to only have one computer and a StupidPhone, so copying to multiple machines isn't really something that would do me much good, but if I had, say, a laptop and a Smartphone, or a Smartphone and a desktop, or a tablet device along with any of these, it would be a fantastic option to have. One question. Is it possible to save stuff on Dropbox to machines you don't own yourself? Like to share with a friend or something?
Yeah, you can create a shared folder with people who have Dropbox. You also have a "public" folder, and if you put stuff there you can send the link to it to anyone, whether they have a Dropbox account or not. I have a couple of Windows systems and a Linux system I use, so Dropbox is nice.
Thanks. That certainly pushes it up a notch or two in my estimation. Maybe I'll give Dropbox a go, if it will work with a Mac. Their Cloud system is still pretty 'buggy' from what I've heard.
