Backing up your important digital files is as important as your annual health screening. Those 10,000 photos sitting on your iPhone are just waiting to be lost in the digital wasteland if you drop it into the toilet. That 56 page report, you’re putting the final touches on, is this close to getting zapped into nothingness when lightning hits nearby. Last year's taxes? The videos from your trip to Europe? Gone. This is serious, life altering sort of stuff I’m discussing here. So what can one do to prepare for the worst? The following is a simple and effective way that I backup all my digital information. There are many options, so please do your researching before settling on my method. It’s by no-means comprehensive or the best method.

There are many ways someone can backup their digital life but the first big universal truth is you should have, at a minimum, two backups. You want an external on-site hard drive and an off-site backup. The on-site's primary role is to back-up your computer in the likely event it crashes. Computers will not last forever and it's not a question of if, but when. The external portable hard drive keeps hourly and daily back-up of your machine and they should be replaced every four years. They're also easy to grab in the event of an emergency. If you own a PC and Mac, you can format one drive to work on both computers and there are some drawbacks to this method. In this scenario, it’s best to use a separate external hard drive for each computer.

Off-site backups are websites that offer a similar function to the external hard drive but act as a safety net in case the computer and external hard drive are both unsalvageable. These services are invaluable if you have a lot of important digital information. I personally use Google Backup and Sync (formerly known as Google Drive Desktop). It’s free for up to 15gb. This is fine if you are mostly backing up text files but if you’re graphic designer or artist backing up large art documents, this won’t be nearly enough. Google also offers free unlimited backup of Photos and Videos at a lower quality. I’ve found the quality kept as a backup to be perfectly fine! Music can be backed-up to Google Music as well, free of charge! These off-site services, once setup, also run seamlessly in the background if you choose to have it perform this way.

I’m an Apple and Google fan equally. Here’s why: I prefer Apple hardware and OS over that of Microsoft but I prefer Google for backup and syncing between all my devices. It’s just as easy, elegant and most of all free or cheap. Additionally, Google products are cross-platform friendly for desktop and mobile. Meaning, if I ever went to PC or Android my digital life in the Google ecosystem is transferrable. This is not to say that there aren’t other cross-platform friendly ways to back-up and store your digital life, but for me it’s the most convenient and easy to use.

So let’s break this down:

Have an external hard drive backing up your computer(s) and replace it every four years.
Have an off-site cloud back-up, preferably Google. Here’s why:
1. Google offers free unlimited photo and video storage at reduced file sizesf
2. They offer 15gb of free storage for backing up your desktop files within Google Drive
3. They offer up 50,000 songs you can back-up for free and it syncs with iTunes
4. Google is cross-platform compatible and user friendly

Thanks to Jakob Owens on Unsplash for the photo.