SOME BACKGROUND ON MY FILE BACKUP

Personally, I have conducted numerous online backup reviews as well as comparisons for the purpose of my own business as well as for the purpose of consulting and managing client operations. I keep up to date on the topic via numerous keyword related searches and RSS feeds. But among the best online backup services are those which provide unlimited online backup, the three best of the lot being Backblaze, Mozy and CrashPlan.

Really, it's virtually a toss up between the three, all with similarly stellar features, namely unlimited online backup, but each distinctive in their relatively minor differences. Amid the chief features of Backblaze that I enjoy is its approach to backup and the subsequent file structure it defaults to, including attached external drives. I also appreciate its configuration options as well its business model and innovative hardware infrastructure, which is extremely solid. Just as with open source software, a company's stability is particularly important to me, particularly when it concerns the backup of critical data.

I manage media, marketing and communications for multiple companies and in doing so produce as well as manage a considerable amount of content, raning between 15-50 gigabyte per month, including websites, documents and graphics with the bulk of the data arriving in the form of videos and photos.

CURRENT STATE OF MY DATA BACKUP

Organizing the data is a notable undertaking. For now, in addition to my 750 Gb internal hard drive I have three external hard drives regularly connected to my primary machine, one Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk External Drive 3 TB external hard drives, one Seagate 500 Gb and one Western Digital External Hard Drive 2 TB (recommend upgrade to USB 3.0 or Firewire) external hard drive. At the end of the year, when the off-road racing season dies down, I will reorganize the data on this primary computer as well as my secondary computer and several others I use on occasion. I will consolidate all my data and distribute them exclusively to three different Seagate 3 Tb external hard drives.

The Seagate external hard drives have been more reliable, particularly when seeminglessly switching between PC and Mac operating systems, both of which I and those whom I work with regularly use. This is a crucial feature to maintaining fluid workflow when sharing files amid a team of videographers and photographers in a very fast-paced and often ardous working envirorment. Add to the interchangability between the two operating systems, I also appreciate the consistency of the hardware and maintain the methodology throughout most every facet of my gear and equipment, whether it be video equipment, still camera equipment, tools and camping equipment.

During the downtime at the end of the year, I will modularize the data between amid the three drives, delegating one exclusively to the archive and recording of live webcast productions, since the amount of data created after a four to eight hour broadcast is incredible. Considering we are soon launching several monthly and weekly interactive web shows and adding additional event coverage to the schedule at LiveOnDIRT, it is possible that I would add one additional hard drive by the end of the year.

The great thing about Backblaze is that all this data, including that stored upon the external hard drives, is continually backed up. And although these external drives can be and are frequently removed and the data shared with clients for additional redundancy to the backup methodology, the backup of that drive resumes upon reconnection.

MY IDEAL BUSINESS DATA BACKUP METHODOLOGY

As for my backup methodology, my computer stores all active files for all relatively active projects. The external hard drives attached to the computer each have a specific purpose. One external drive stores all photos and videos. The second stores all non-active archives as well as monthly website backups. Monthly website backups include files and databases. Ecommerce websites are generally, depending upon the activity of the site, backed up to one of these local external drives weekly, which includes files and databases. In addition to weekly backup, databases are also backed up daily to these external drives for ecommerce operations that exceed $1,000 per day in sales and multiple times per day for anything over $2,000 per day. And because you should never rely upon your host to backup your files, I also automatically backup these ecommerce as well as active forum-based sites to a DIFFERENT host on weekly and even hourly intervals.

Now, all the local files are backed up monthly and even weekly to external drives, depending upon the influx of data on any given week. Backing up locally to external drives ensures the backups are quickly applied rather than having to wait for online backup to catch up and risk data loss. These local, onsite backups are not continually connected and are only connected to perform mirror backups of all the data. This way, these drives are not accessible to the internet for security purposes, they are turned off to reduce the working longevity of the hardware and are stored away from the primary office space to reduce the risk of damage to both sets of data.

In addition to the local mirror backup drives, local working drives (working files and archive files) attached to my primary computer, the data is backed up offsite using Backblaze. That same working data is also backed up to a web host, where it is locked down. It is worth mention, though, that once upon a time, several gigabyes of MP3 music and interview files went mysteriously missing some years back, and I assume that, while it could have been an accidental deletion on my part, the host deleted them for the fear of piracy.

For client specific files, depending upon client activity and interest, I regularly deliver complete file backups to the client. While they often perceive this as a hassle, I view it as my ethical duty, which they would appreciate when I should give up the ghost. All passwords are available through these backups as well as through various other means and accessible at any given moment.

For photos and videos, I also backup to SmugMug, which provides unlimited data storage. I perform the backups (uploads) via SmugFTP, which is the fastest and most consistent method of uploading to SmugMug. The developer, Wong Liang Zan, has been great to work with. Not only is he very cordial but also a hard working developer with an ear toward improving the product through the experience of others. Check him out at Zanliangzan.net.

As for one of the other key elements of communication, there's the smart phone, which is the Google Android Droid X. I connect this device via Bluetooth and have the photos, videos and related file data auto backup to a mobile drive directoy upon my laptop. As for the contacts, I generally push all those to sync to Google Contacts cloud service. And for redundancy, I push those to Batchbook CRM and also to MailChimp Newsletter.