From my friends at GigaOM comes this write-up about the perils of relying on the ‘Cloud’ for keeping your stuff: author Geoffrey Goetz writes about some music he had which disappeared from his Apple iCloud account when Apple stopped carrying the songs in question. It seems their cloud matching program only works for items they presently list in their catalogue, or that you’ve uploaded yourself. If Goetz had downloaded his purchases and then re-uploaded them manually, he could have kept them.
I feel for Goetz and his difficulties, but really this should be Internet 101 at this point. Thou shalt back up thy stuff! I checked my own iTunes cloud after reading this article and found no music whatsoever, and I am pretty sure there are at least two albums I’ve bought, even though I am not much of a music person. Obviously, Apple doesn’t carry them anymore. Thank goodness I download everything and back it up!
When I do use cloud services, my preference is for Dropbox. I can transfer content to and from my devices using their iOS app, and in addition to backing my files up to the cloud, it also keeps a folder on my actual computer, which I then back up to an external drive as part of my computer maintenance. I never have to worry about a corporate overlord denying me access to my stuff because I have my own copies of it.
I know DRM removal is a grey area for some people, but I download all my ebook purchases, liberate them from the DRM and back them up to my computer and I feel no guilt whatsoever about it. I am not torrenting it for the millions. I am just making sure I can keep it for myself. Say it with me, people: thou shat back up thy stuff! No offence, Cloud!.
I love how the term has become “liberate” from DRM. It’s so evocative!
As cheap as disk space is, there is little excuse not to back up your purchases. I maintain several: a bootable clone of my startup drive, a Time Machine backup (MacOS X) and some offsite backups. Just $140 will purchase a Toshiba 3 Terabyte internal HD.
For Windows 7 etc a program called Rebit accomplishes the same “time machine” magic, offering real time backups of a computer, portable backups, full system restore or selective files, etc … all in one under $50 software. I start a fresh backup annually and put the retired drive safely away offsite. $100 a year for (total) peace of mind! How on earth will you ever replace those precious pictures otherwise?
Living in an area that is prone to natural disasters my motto is ‘off site back up’ (which is why we need to get off this rock!) so I use the cloud to do that.
My choice is Carbonite because it is set it and forget. My wife can edit a picture, change a narrative and I do not need to worry about when is the last time I moved her things to the external hard drive.
“I know DRM removal is a grey area for some people, but I download all my ebook purchases, liberate them from the DRM and back them up to my computer and I feel no guilt whatsoever about it. I am not torrenting it for the millions. I am just making sure I can keep it for myself.”
I agree completely and do the same thing. And, as an author, I am perfectly OK with readers doing the same with my books — so I’m not a hypocrite! (Actually, I sell them without DRM so you don’t have to bother with that step.)