Cloud systems are a great thing to have for your filing system. I’ve talked to no end about cloud systems. The one piece that I would recommend taking a serious look at is having a backup for your cloud system. The reason for this, in very simple terms, is that you want to ensure that your filing system is 100% secure. Like I said, Cloud systems are great, and assuming you’re going with one of what I call the “big four” (being OneDrive, iCloud, Google Drive or Dropbox) then you can be assured of quite a bit of security. I like backing up my system to two external Hard drives which I back up on a monthly basis. I do this because while I do trust Cloud systems I am a little paranoid and want to make sure that my system is secure.
1) Totally under your control – Having an external hard drive where you know that your files are completely secure is something that I like simply because it gives me peace of mind. I like knowing that if somehow, something were to happen to my files in the cloud, I would be only about 20-30 days out from what I had added to my system.
2) You Set the Schedule – I add things to my filing system constantly, but that’s because I try to keep as much of my documentation as I can in a digital format. For that reason, I back up my filing system once a month. Once, every 30 days or so I take the time and make sure that my files are secure. For you, you might not add as much stuff to your system as frequently, in which case you may only need to back up your system once a quarter or once every six months. I would still figure out how frequently you need to back up your filing system and stick to that schedule.
3) There is no Thing as a Perfectly Secure System – I am a big believer in the fact that no system will ever work 100% all the time. There is a multitude of factors that cause this; outside interference, updates that changes how the system works, or plain and simple human error can make how you set up your system not function correctly. Having your backup makes it so that no matter what, you will be able to feel secure knowing that no matter what happens, your files are protected.
I’ll tell you a quick story about when this came into sharp relief for me. a few years ago I was playing around with the settings on my phone. Somehow (as does happen) I had used up almost all of my memory on my phone and was being warned that I needed to clear some things out in order for updates to work properly. I found a few video files and removed them, and then I went to my settings and started playing around with some of the things in there.
One of the settings that I hit said: “delete cloud cache”. What I thought that meant was that I would be removing any secondary backup of my filing system that the phone was holding onto. This, in my head, would solve my overused memory issue. What I actually did was delete my ENTIRE FILING SYSTEM!
Everything that I had on the cloud from any way I had of accessing it was gone. After a mild panic attack, I remembered that I had backed up my filing system a week or so before this particular incident, so I was able to go back, reinstate my filing system and all was well. I have to admit, even knowing what happened and how I solved it, I still get shivers thinking about what happened.
Making sure that your system is backed up and secure is important. You’re going to be spending quite a bit of time, effort, and to a certain degree money on your filing system. Knowing that your system is secure and backed up is something that is critical for Organizing your Digital Life. Think about it like this; Assuming that you have a place to live, one of the first things that you do in order to keep is safe is to buy insurance. backing up your files to a secondary hard drive is a form of insurance for your information. That way you will feel safe knowing that your information is always secure.
Do you back up your system?
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