I have a good friend who recently lost most of her data on Dropbox. She was using Dropbox instead of her computer for storing work-related files (not genealogy related). She felt they were safe there. Until they weren’t. One day she realized that most of her files on Dropbox seemed to have vanished. She hesitated to contact them immediately, figuring it was some sort of temporary glitch or user error.
When she did contact Dropbox, they confirmed that the files and folders were gone. They offered no explanation. And they informed her that they delete files that haven’t been touched in 30 days. They offered her nothing in terms of assistance. And they did all that via email, declining to give my friend a telephone number for customer support. I was really shocked and disappointed.
Luckily, my friend uses Carbonite and her Dropbox account was included in the backup. So she was able to restore the files lost by Dropbox to her computer.
That got me thinking about how horrible I would feel if I lost my digital genealogy records (or most of my digital files, for that matter). I’ve developed a back-up scheme that makes me comfortable, but I’d be very interested to hear from you about how you ensure that your data are protected.
I store all my data on my hard drive. (I have a perhaps irrational fear of storing things only in the cloud.) My family tree info is in Reunion. My scanned files are in my Genealogy folder, filed by surname. I do have an Ancestry.com tree, but it’s a supplement to what I have on my hard drive.
I back up my hard drive every 15 minutes with CrashPlan Pro. When my MacBook is at my desk at home, I have it plugged into an external hard drive. I use Time Machine to back up hourly as well.
There are some things in my genealogy life that aren’t fully backed up. Some of my items on Evernote, for example, aren’t stored on my hard drive. This blog is backed up to Dropbox daily. (I felt better about that before my friend’s Dropbox experience.)
I feel secure with this system, but I fear it’s a false sense of security. I’d love to hear from you. How do you back up your genealogy data?
Photo by Karen via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.
I pretty much have the same backup strategy you do. I use Time Machine and CrashPlan. I also make a clone of my hard drive every night and that is on a separate external hard drive. For that I use Carbon Copy Cloner. I don’t know about my Evernote files getting backed up-Evernote is part of my home user folder which gets backed up to Time Machine and CrashPlan and also gets cloned but that is just my app. I guess I don’t know where all the files are for it… All in the cloud? I guess. I am trusting Evernote to keep my files safe it seems. So that’s my backup plans! Judy
Judy, we’re separated at birth! All I’m missing is the cloning of the hard drive–I have to look that up! So if I’m understanding you correctly, you have two external hard drives involved in your backups. That’s fantastic!
My backup routine uses Time Machine and Backblaze. I also have an external hard drive in the safe deposit box that gets backed up once a month, at a minimum. If I have been really productive during the month, it will get backed up more often. I also have Reunion apps on my iPad and iPhone, which at least backs up the data, although I wouldn’t have the multimedia on my sources. Evernote has definitely been a concern for me, and I obviously need to revisit that concern soon. Thanks for that reminder
Hi, Roberta, thanks for your comment. I’ve been considering switching to Backblaze after talking to the rep at the RootsTech conference, since it’s slightly cheaper. So you’re using Time Machine to back up to an external hard drive and you keep a separate hard drive in a safe deposit box that you update once a month, is that correct? That’s impressive to me. I have a SentrySafe fire safe. Perhaps I should consider keeping a second external hard drive there that I update on a schedule. Thanks so much for the idea!
That’s really strange that Dropbox would have just lost her data like that. I’ve had files on Dropbox for years and haven’t touched them since then, and they’ve still been there. Even free versions allow you to do that. So that’s really surprising and hopefully not something happening frequently with users.
I would agree that users need to probably have multiple backup sources. An external hard drive is an excellent idea in addition to cloud-based services. But just like hard copies of anything, there’s always a slight chance you misplace your hard drive too. So having multiple sources of backups is a good idea.
I agree, Mark. It’s really strange. I read the emails from Dropbox myself saying that the data wouldn’t have been backed up past 30 days. Why it vanished in the first place is a real mystery. I think it’s an anomaly, but it’s good to know such things can happen so that you can be prepared.
I guess the takeaway, as you said, is that it’s really important to have multiple backup sources Thanks for your comment!
Maybe they need to develop a backup service to backup the original backups services. 🙂
I would never dream of keeping my data only in Dropbox, but I do use Dropbox for off-site backup. Some family history databases I work on with my wife, and we synchronise it between our computers using Dropbox, which means there’s a copy on each of our computers and one on Dropbox.
I also trans most of my data files from desktop to laptop using a USB flash drive. They are backed up to and from the flash drive by batchfile (so I just type dsk2flsh, flsh2lap, etc) and don’t forget any. And I use four different USB flash drives for that, usually a week at a time, so if one of them fails I still have backups on the others, and also, if there’s a fire or something, I could grab one of them in a hurry.
I also have a batch file for backibng uop data files to a DVD R/W disc, and about once a month copy that to a DVD R disc.
With all that, I hope that if disaster strikes I’ll still be able to find my data.
Thanks for your comment, Steve. I’m glad to know that you’re using multiple USB flash drives, to guard against failure. It really sounds like you’re protected. I hope disaster never strikes, but it looks like your genealogy data will be protected if it does.
You say you don’t like the cloud, but according to what I read in the link in your post, the backup program you use, CrashPlan Pro, backs up to the cloud. Did I read too fast and miss something? Is there a way to NOT backup to a cloud with CrashPlan Pro and backup to an external drive in your home, as you say you are doing?
William, I don’t like to store my files *only* in the cloud. I want them on my computer’s hard drive as the primary location But I back up to CrashPlan Pro (in the cloud) in addition to an external hard drive. Sorry if I wasn’t clear!
Just saw this. I follow similar to you. I didn’t see it in the comments, but an additional way I protect my files is to save them to an external hard drive, then take them or mail them to my in-laws where it goes in a closet that’s never used. Since we’re on the west coast, there’s always the chance of a devastating earth quake. The in-laws, and my spare backup, are on the east coast.
Donn, I’m impressed that you take the extra effort to send your spare back up to a safe, distant place. Thanks for sharing that strategy.
Last March, my PC’s external hard drive (all-in-one PC) fried and I lost everything I’d worked on for the previous 18 months. To say I was devastated would be an understatement! Not being very good at these things, I got my computer ‘guy’ to help. We got another external HDD and he set it up to clone the whole PC, registry and all, every hour; I already had a drive for my Macbook Air but my files, especially my Gene files are not on it. Fortunately, I had uploaded my tree to Tribal Pages a few days before so I got that back. BUT, the main thing I want to say here is – please do NOT leave your HDDs plugged in! If there is a surge (yes, I have surge protectors), all the drives will be fried!
You have all given me much food for thought for the future. Thank you!
Meredith, I’m sorry to hear about your experience with your hard drive and I thank you for the wake up call about not leaving hard drives plugged in! Your story validates my strategy of both external drive and cloud backup.
Thanks for commenting!
I checked my old Drop Box account and couldn’t get in it?? Not a good thing but luckily my Genealogy files were not in it. However, I need to come up with a way to back up files those files. Lots of good ideas in this thread! Thanks.
Thanks for your comment, Judy! Dropbox can be great for file sharing, but I prefer an automatic online backup service for backing up. Glad you found the post helpful!
I have been using Drop (along with an external drive) for my genealogy. I was under the impression that both Drop and Drpbox U.S. resident files that are actually on your hard drive but sync to the cloud. Isn’t that true?
Jean, I thought that when I save something to Dropbox (I do that in the Finder on my Mac) it doesn’t also save it on my hard drive. But maybe I need to do some experiments to verify that.
I use a WD Passport for my photos, trees and family related stuff. Had to start over too many times with lost material.
Beckie Anne, I use an external hard drive too, which is great. I’m also made more comfortable by the fact that I have an online backup, in case the external hard drive fails (and vice versa). Belt and suspenders, right?
Most think about the surge that comes from power lines. DON’T forget the surge that can come through phone lines. We have had 3 computers blown up from surges through phone lines; and that includes peripheral. I agree with one comment that there needs to be a copy that is kept attached neither to phone nor power lines.
Thanks so much for that important warning!!
How do you like Reunion? Do you know if you use Parallels will it work on a PC? Right now I have everything done on Ancestry. I was using TMG but since they went out of business I haven’t decided what program to use. I mostly stayed with Ancestry because of their book publishing feature. Once I finish the book I will be putting everything into a program and printing out a hard copy of everything. When I did use a program I backed everything up to a separate hard drive and a thumb drive that I stored in a fire proof safe.
Edward, I love Reunion! (But the truth is that I’ve never used any other family tree software.) As far as I know, Parallels is used to run Windows software on a Mac, not Mac software on Windows. Unless you want to switch to Mac (I love the Mac!), you may want to use a Windows-native program. All that said, I’m not very knowledgeable about Windows. Perhaps someone will pipe up here and correct me.
Such an important topic!
My genealogy files are stored in 3 places: Evernote, Time Machine, and my hard drive. Currently, they’re ~16GB, or about 5500 notes. Evernote manages my documents on my computer as well as keeping a set in the cloud. It will do this with the Basic (free) plan but I pay for the Premium plan (because it is amazing). I recently had an Evernote application crash on my computer, so had to delete and restore the program. Trust me, I was nervous, but the new application installed and repopulated itself from the cloud without any issues. My documents were never at risk – even during that crash, all my docs were available via the web link.
I also have 33K photo images on a separate computer which accesses the internet sparingly, and the archive is backed up to a portable hard drive. I keep these two archives separate deliberately. I use Adobe Lightroom to manage the photo archive.
I like Time Machine because it constantly backs up wirelessly without me thinking about it, because …life. Recently I’ve been thinking about one more backup system but I’ve had troubles with portable hard drives over the long term. Plus, this statistic will give you pause: 4 out of 5 portable hard drives will fail after 5 years. If you use them constantly, they will fail sooner. They are, after all, just electronic gizmos. (Note to self: replace backup HD for photos soon.)
I used to manage electronic legal archives for lawyers who travelled a great deal. They needed something that was easy to use and didn’t require the internet all the time. We used the business version of Box. Box does what Evernote does – keeps a synced copy of the archive on your computer.
So, in the end, I think: multiple systems are the way to go: fresh, solid state backup hard drives, plus cloud storage. It’s a lot more trouble than keeping paper files, but frankly I’ve got more stuff stored digitally than I could ever afford to print or store! 🙂
Linda
Thanks, Linda, for sharing your experience! I agree with your conclusion that multiple back up systems are the way to go. My external hard drive died recently (only two years old, I think). I’m glad I also have an online backup system going.
Two years! That’s disheartening. What kind was it?
It’s a Seagate. Oh well. At least they’re not super expensive.