I'd like a way to back up my WIP offsite in case of something catastrophic. Even without something catastrophic I have one Passport that has gone bad and another that's going bad. I need another backup method. Are Google Drive and Dropbox considered good and safe choices?
Google Drive / Dropbox
- Thread starter Ava Meeple
- Start date
I've used dropbox for many years without incident. The free level is not large enough to hold large collections of images, music, or videos, but it's more than enough for all my word processing files, which includes multiple drafts of multiple books.
I especially like that I can move from device to device, accessing the last version saved. I'm way too lazy to go downstairs to the laptop I used this morning when I'm upstairs at the desktop, you know?
Maryn, truthful about laziness
I especially like that I can move from device to device, accessing the last version saved. I'm way too lazy to go downstairs to the laptop I used this morning when I'm upstairs at the desktop, you know?
Maryn, truthful about laziness
And thanks!
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2014
- Messages
- 2,449
- Reaction score
- 1,505
Google Drive and Dropbox are both quite safe, and definitely a good back-up option for your book, but they shouldn't be your only option. Always have multiple back-up locations--flash drives (which will fail, yes), external hard-drives (which also fail, but not as frequently if you buy good ones, which aren't actually that expensive), multiple different cloud storages, and hard copies never hurt anyone either.
Google Drive is bigger than Dropbox. It's 15GB to begin with and you can get more periodically even without paying (Google gives out 2GB sometimes for checking your security settings). It also integrates nicely with Gmail if you happen to use that. I use Dropbox as well, but Dropbox's other big drawback is that it's an absolute RAM hog. It likes to run all the time, which doesn't help and getting it off your computer can also be a bit of a trick.
Google Drive is bigger than Dropbox. It's 15GB to begin with and you can get more periodically even without paying (Google gives out 2GB sometimes for checking your security settings). It also integrates nicely with Gmail if you happen to use that. I use Dropbox as well, but Dropbox's other big drawback is that it's an absolute RAM hog. It likes to run all the time, which doesn't help and getting it off your computer can also be a bit of a trick.
I have been using Dropbox, Drive, and Box collectively for a number of years for backups. Absolutely mission critical stuff also is on my own SAN which I can remotely access with my own credentials on the go if needed.
I use Google Drive, but not just for storage--I write in it as well. Love that my work is auto-saved almost instantly, I can work on any device, and even work offline and have the new stuff synced as soon as I'm online again.
My husband saves files in Dropbox, but I'm pretty sure it won't auto-save (unless he has it set up wrong).
My husband saves files in Dropbox, but I'm pretty sure it won't auto-save (unless he has it set up wrong).
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2014
- Messages
- 2,449
- Reaction score
- 1,505
+1 to this. I was away for two weeks over Christmas and I had everything updated without a hitch. Google Drive is really good for versioning, too. It isn't SVN or the like, but it's accessible versioning for the non-tech and reasonably reliable.
Dropbox live syncs, too, as long as you keep it on. It can be paused or disabled. So can Google Drive. There are times I write locally or am syncing different versions back together that this becomes preferable. The one downside to cloud work, for me, is that it becomes a bit harder to go back to Draft 1 if I want. So I just create different folders for each draft.
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2017
- Messages
- 1,018
- Reaction score
- 173
- Location
- The Backwoods Of Maine
- Website
- raiscara-avalon.typepad.com
I do all my writing with Google Drive, it syncs my happy little files and I'm safe if my computer shall crash and burn - again. I also use externals as more collective storage space. Of course it may depend on what you write in as well.