I saw an article today that talked about the joys of using the cloud to backup your computer.
What the article didn’t tell you was that you are throwing away good money by doing this.
My computer came with a 1 TB hard drive. I could use Google Drive to backup my computer but that would cost me $9.99 a month.
Some experts will argue that the $10 a month cost is well worth it considering it might save me one day from having lost all my data. But are there other options that aren’t so costly? YES! And that is my point.
Backing up your computer is important and it’s absolutely something you should do but does it really have to cost you $120 a year, forever?
- Google Drive – 1TB – $9.99 a month ($120 a year)
- Dropbox – 1TB – $8.25 a month ($99 a year)
- One Drive (Microsoft) – 1TB – $6.99 a month ($69 a year)
Alternatively, you can go to Amazon and for $50 you can buy a 1TB external hard drive, a little box you plug into your computer that you can then copy all the files from your hard drive to and now you have a backup.
You can do this once a month and always know you are up to date and you know what? You don’t have to keep paying for it. Once you buy the little box, it’s yours. You own it forever.
I picked up a 4TB one the other day for $100 and I use it to store all my photos. It’s a great way to be able to keep all your photos without filling up your hard drive.
The only thing is, you must remember to actually do your monthly backup. I do it on the same day every month, the first Friday night of the month — that way I never forget.
I start the backup, then go to bed. When I wake up it’s all done.
