How to: my Personal Storage
Ever had some important files erased? I have.
When I was around 10th grade, I never paid any attention to where I saved my files. No USBs, no back-ups, nothing. I just saved them all on our family desktop computer, some on my phone.
One day I just woke up to find out that they were all gone. Poof. My dad had reformatted our computer, and all my saved files were gone.
It had my papers and research (I based off them from time to time) ever since the start of high school and — gone. Needless to say I had plenty of regrets.
Now I have new important files —
Concert Photos (& videos)
My screenshots
Story/Idea prompts (notes)
Previous academic papers
some Movies & Series
You know what? I’ll draw a table.
Better? Better.
I’ve never thought about it before, but now looking at the table, I realize that I have few back ups of my files, some even none at all.
I’ve never stopped and consider what will happen if an emergency situation were to occur.
What if my laptop would get stolen? My phone?
What if my SD Card suddenly had an error? (This actually happened.)
What if my Google Drive got hacked?
The last one seems unlikely, but the first a real possibility. I’ve only had my laptop recently, a little over a year I think, so all the files I had managed to save from before just goes directly to my laptop’s local disk.
My movies and series are fine since I can download some again, and my concert album has another copy on Google Drive. The most important would be my academic papers, since I don’t have it anywhere else.
My next steps?
1. Take advantage of Google Drive
I don’t think I’ve done anything at Google Drive except use it to view shared files (e.g. view readings) and that’s a complete waste.
Google Drive has up to 15GB free for your use. That’s more than enough for a copy of my academic files. Maybe even 2.
I don’t always say this for free stuff, but take advantage of what’s available. It could cut you losses, too.
2. Invest in an external drive (HDD, SSD)
The reason I do a double-take on external drives is because of the prices.
As a student, it’s a must-have although a bit heavy on the pocket. One thing’s for sure, it’s a good investment especially if you have more files that are more than just a few GB.
Some tips would be avoiding a one-time buy would be:
-Save up for it bit by bit
-Ask for it on your birthday
-Be a good child and maybe your parents will consider giving it to you on your birthday. (reference to 2)
3. Back-up regularly
If you have an iPhone, then surely you have an iCloud or a cloud storage. What I like about this is that it has a back-up option which you could do that only lasts for 10 minutes, given a steady connection to Wi-Fi.
If you have some important files or would just like to save your photos like me, backing up regularly is easy and saves you more time.
I don’t think this should be a “next step”, but it should be given that you have more than 1 copy or access to your important files.
Better to be safe than sorry.
