They always say, “Your not backed up till you have multiple copies in multiple locations.” Here’s so cool tools to stay backed up, share files with clients, and access your projects from anywhere on the planet.

I often get asked how I keep all of my projects backed up and how do I share files with people so fast?!

For the past two years I have accumulated more than 2 Terabytes of data from video projects, websites, and graphics I have done for my clients. All of that data has been stored on a local Drobo which lived on my desk connected to my iMac. The Drobo is built to create its own redundancy so that I would never loose data but this solution isn’t enough. If someone broke into my home and stole my equipment or a fire destroyed our home, years of work and all of my client’s data would be lost. I had to come up with a true backup solution because the mere thought of loosing that much work and that much information worried me.

My first idea was to use services like backblaze.com, mossy.com, or carbonite.com – each offer online backup solutions. I tried each of theses services on their unlimited data plans and began the process of sending 2 Terabytes of data to their data centers. I lost my patience when after 2 months of nearly constant backup I had not yet fully backed up my 3 Terabytes of data to their data center. If it took this long to run the initial backup, I knew when I added another 1GB video it would take too long to backup to any of those online services. What if I ever lost my local Drobo? It would take too much time to recover my data from these online backup services as well. Clearly this was not the right solution for me.

What I needed was a way to seed another identical Drobo or another drive with everything I currently have, then move that Drobo to another location. The problem was how to access the other Drobo remotely…? I didn’t want to have to purchase another computer or setup some kind of complicated VPN connection. That’s when I discovered CrashPlan. Crashplan is the all-in-one backup solution for everyone – tech guru and computer novice alike.

So here’s what I did….

• I signed up for CrashPlan’s seeded backup plan.
• CrashPlan sent me a 1TB external drive.
• I loaded nearly all of my drobo onto the 1TB seed drive.
• I sent the drive back to CrashPlan.
• Now I am fully backed up off-site. Everything that goes on my drobo ends up in the cloud.

But what about needing to access files remotely or share files with clients?

Along came the the Pogoplug and Dropbox. Pogoplug is an ingenious device that lets you access and share the contents of your external hard drives through the internet. HOLY SMOKES! Dropbox is a tool for sharing a common folder between multiple computers and over the internet.

So now I use the Pogoplug connected to my home Drobo so that I can access or share my files from anywhere on the planet. Dropbox allows me to keep a few current files and projects in sync between my laptop and desktop. All while CrashPlan constantly keeps the Drobo and my machines backed up to the cloud where I never have to worry about a thing….

Sooo… How do you stay backed up?