“I’m going to need to stop you there and clear something up: iCloud is not a backup service, it is a syncing service”
– Brandon, Apple Service Technician
And with that one sentence from an Apple support technician to a friend, I knew that that nagging feeling in the back of my mind that we needed a more robust and numerous backup solution was accurate.
Let’s not get anything backwards though, I do love the simplicity of iCloud. With numerous Apple products, I know that with it I can log into any one of them and have access to my digital world – contacts, calendar, photos, messages, notes, thanks to iCloud. What’s more, I know that if one of those devices gets lost, stolen, or destroyed that all of my data is safe in the cloud and accessible somewhere else…but I do have concerns with it.
My media library is my memories. Well, my memories are my memories, but my media is often the spark to whirl me back in time to the joyous moments of the past. Looking at a video of my sons as toddlers takes me back to those days that they tumbled headlong into rooms to announce their excitement at learning something new, or just wanting to tackle me to the bed. Photos of events can remind me of far away loves, or those who have passed on, or even of moments I’d like to forget but know that it’s important that I don’t. These digital remnants are one of the most treasured possessions that I have, and it is important to both now and the future that I ensure that they are secure.
Over the years, my iCloud Photo Library has grown. First it could no longer be contained within the 50 GB storage option, then quickly the 200 GB storage option. At the moment, I pay $9.99 a month for 2 TB of iCloud storage and it appears that this should be enough for now. But here’s the thing: no matter how much iCloud storage I have, that is still just a single chest to store all of my precious memories.
While I don’t believe that Apple will ever go out of business, shit happens. Maybe some weird corruption happens to the data, perhaps I accidentally delete years of photos without realizing it, or what if someone with a lot of skill and knowledge manages to steal my account info and get in and have access to all that I hold dear? In one fell swoop, it’s all gone and I have no recourse to recover it. It’s a risk that I am no longer willing to take, and truthfully shouldn’t have been taking it for so long.
So here’s what I’m doing going forward; I’m following the Rule of 3, or the Backup 3-2-1 plan.
- 3 Copies of Everything You Care About
- 2 Different Formats/Locations of the Data
- 1 Off-site Backup
Here is how I plan on accomplishing this:
Copy 1 – iCloud
Yes, I know that what the rep said that this is a syncing service, not a backup service, but as long as Apple continues to be successful company (their nearly $300 billion in the bank should help with that for a bit), I believe that this counts for now.
Copy 2 – An Encrypted External Hard Drive at My House
I have purchased a good sized external hard drive. These things have gotten stupid cheap over the years. Currently on Amazon, you can get a 4 TB (decently fast) hard drive, or a 2 TB solid state (really really fast) for $100. I encrypted (made it so it can only be accessed with a password) this hard drive, and then followed this guide to sync and download the full sized original versions of my iCloud Photo Library to this hard drive. Because this hard drive is encrypted, I know that even if stolen, no one is able to access the data on it without a password.
Copy 3 (Offsite Storage) – BackBlaze
The external hard drive is attached to a computer at my house that is always on and connected to the internet. For $70 a year, a backup company called BackBlaze will backup any and everything on or attached to that computer off-site in an encrypted format on their servers. From anywhere in the world, with my username and password, I can access anything that is backed up on their servers, so I know it’s safe. The importance of having a copy of your data offsite is to protect against flooding, fire, or theft of your other copies of data in your home. I trust Backblaze thanks to tens of thousands of reviews, and the fact that when I had a hard drive fail at my house a few years ago, BackBlaze sent me a copy of all of the data on that hard drive from their servers on a hard drive FOR FREE. As long as I continue to pay that $70 a year, I have peace of mind that if something happens to backups 1 and 2, I can still recover my digital life. Can’t recommend this company enough.
I greatly appreciate the honesty of this support representative, and the spark that he kicked off. With it, I know that I can trust that I can go into the future safe with the knowledge that those precious digital memories of mine are safe and no longer just in one place.
I encourage you to think through the important digital memories and pieces of data you have, and to ensure that it is as safe as you would like it to be. If not, the above is a plan that you can take starting today. I know that this article focused primarily on Apple products and iCloud, but know that a similar approach is available for Android phones and Google/Samsung/Amazon digital media libraries.
Stay safe out there, and keep your stuff safe too.