Hey Artists! Back up your data!
Backing up your shits important! Especially if you got files you use for your business!! Set up automatic backups, and then you dont gotta worry about if you lose your laptop or if your computer explodes or nothing.
3-2-1 Backup Rule
You'll hear this repeated amongst back-up enthusiasts, it's a suggestion on how many backups you should keep.
3 copies of your data
In addition to your original data, you should keep 2 separate copies of it.
2 copies on different media
Your two copies should be on two different devices, like external drives, NAS, or cloud storage.
1 off-site copy
In order to protect against physical happenings, it's suggested you keep a copy of your data in another physical location, such as cloud storage or a NAS located at your parents house or something.
Backup Location Options
iPad:
I know most of yall are using procreate on your ipad. This DOES make it more difficult to have a handle on all your files, there's simply no way to grab your files from procreate and copy them somewhere else. I've looked into it extensively. You have the option to export all your files manually but. If you've got a huge backlog, that's kind of crazy.
Unfortunately, the best option I can find for you is to pay for icloud, which will automatically back up your entire ipad. 😔 I KNOW, not what you wanna hear. I'm sorry. But, as a consolation prize, at least know that apple takes their customer's security and privacy way more seriously than google, and they don't sell your data as far as we kNOW.
Of course, if you're willing to manually export, or just start exporting every new file you got, it's simple enough to just save to a certain folder on your ipad that'll be mirrored to your location of choice, or even directly save it to a network location (like a NAS). You can mass-select your procreate files from the gallery and choose to export them en-masse- just might take a while!
Computer- Easy: External hard drive
Easiest option, a simple external hard drive that plugs up to your computer, usually via USB. As of writing this, a 1TB drive can be found for about $150. Popular brands include WD (western digital), Seagate
Computer- Medium: Cloud Storage
I am loathe to suggest cloud-anything for most purposes, however, it really is a good idea to store your stuff on someone else's damn computer. Your data CAN be encrypted before it gets sent over, so even if they for some reason decide to try and get in there, they can't do anything with it anyway.
Don't use google drive. For multiple reasons. Access to your data is convenient, but unencrypted from google itself, and as you probably know, they've got their grubby little hands in there training AI on your shit.
All cloud storage is going to incur a subscription cost. Some includes software for automatic back ups, and some is just straight up a place to dump your files. many are way more expensive than what you'll need.
Personally I use a site called Backblaze. I set up my computer with my (free) backing-up software to send my data to it's cloud storage, I pay less than $2 a month for about 300gb of storage. I back up my important stuff, which is all my files, and my photos. I don't include stuff like, program files, operating system snapshots, and stuff that can be replaced, yknow.
Computer- Medium/Difficult: NAS
NAS stands for Network Attached Storage. It's a number of drives inside of an enclosure, with an added computer system, so it's more interactive than a simple external hard drive. It's pretty much another computer for u, with a bunch of storage space, and can even be used for server-like purposes.
This can be a difficult solution to begin with if you are unfamiliar with. Yknow, computer-stuff. But it can be done for you! You CAN do it and you can learn! There are also brands of NAS that include some useful software for free, so you can potentially back up your computer with their included programs.
There are a few popular brands of NAS that I see most often, Synology, Qnap, and Ugreen. Ugreen is the cheapest, however, their software isn't the most "mature" or stable, resulting in potential issues with your data that I don't think are worth the risk, lol. These systems use their proprietary operating systems, based on linux. They'll have "apps" you can download for maximum compatibility, but there's a huge amount of stuff you can install on your own outside of the approved programs. By default, it's all fairly user-friendly.
A NAS is a handy way to wirelessly back up your data, and it's even possible to use it as a dropbox-type situation for your files, access it remotely, and do other fun stuff like set up a media server. This option will NOT be cheap. But all your data will be YOUR OWN, and there's no subscription crap! Unless you opt in to whatever other special programs lol.
Backup Software: Automatic Backups!
All yall can really easily make a copy of your data. But how convenient is it to do that, really? Much more useful to have something that can save your files automatically so you really don't have to worry! Once you set up one of these programs, they should be good to go for the most part, and able to back up your stuff for when you might need it!
File backup vs image backup
Real quick just wanna establish here, file backups vs image backups. A file back up will copy your files, simple enough. An image backup typically is an entire "image" of your computer/operating system as it is in that point of time, saving every single thing about your computer, to be restored in case your computer completely shits the bed. You may see "images" mentioned for specific files- this is just the same, a snapshot of that file from that specific point in time. It's useful to have backups of both, file backups can be taken more frequently, while a computer image backup will be good to have if things get real bad, lol. Some back-up programs only provide one of these options.
File backups, typically, are able to be perused as though they are a normal folder on your computer, making it easy to recover a few files when needed. Meanwhile, an image backup can only be restored and replace the computer's files entirely, individual files cannot be extracted out of it. I'll have files backing up on my computer every hour (depending on the folder), and an image backup like once a month.
Paid Software
There's likely a huge amount of paid software out there. However, as you may know, I HATE paying for things. The only one I've used is Acronis, which is a very prominent software. It came freely available with my WD external hard drive- so this is a great option if you're backing up directly to a WD device. This free version of the software ONLY works when backing up to WD products.
Free Software
If you're using a NAS, there is likely a program provided with the default OS that will handle automatic backups for ya.
All the free file-backup software I've used have the same basic function, you choose the place to back up to, you choose the files/folders to back up, and you choose how often you want it to happen. They use incremental backups, meaning that after the inital backup that will take a while, it will then only need to save a comparatively small amount of data every subsequent backup, for just files that have been changed. I have my entire C drive scheduled to back up once a month, while my "art" folders I set to back up every single hour. You can set how many versions of the file you'd like to save, that way you can backup a file from even earlier than your latest save, in case you like, merged all your layers then saved it and also didnt notice for an hour lol.
MSP360 Backup Free
Available for Windows, Mac, Linux, not open-source. File backups for all systems, both file and image backups available for windows. Looks pretty simple to use, I haven't used this before.
Kopia
Available for Windows, Mac, Linux, Docker, open-source. Specifically for file backups. You'll wanna look for the GUI (graphical user interface) versions, rather than the CLI (command line interface) versions, unless you feel like getting into command-life stuff. Can save to local locations and also securely to a cloud service. Might be a bit complicated to figure out, but theres a bunch of guides, and I can always write a bit more about it if u want a bit more control over stuff.
Restic/Backrest
Available for Windows, Mac, Linux, Docker, open-source Backrest is the GUI version of Restic. Restic is only available as a command line controlled program. Same as Kopia but it's like, even more complicated, even more granular control over your backups and scheduling.
Real-life Use Case
As an example, I shall describe how all of my backup stuff fits together.
First off, my files get saved from my ipad to a folder set to sync up with my computer and NAS. (I use clip studio paint on the ipad so i have returned to the habit of manually saving things lol)
I've got Kopia running in the background on my desktop, I back up my C drive once a month, my "documents" and "pictures" folder once a day I think, then the folders I most use within those folders once an hour. Obviously, I'm mostly saving things to documents and pictures, so I don't bother with backing up the other stuff as often. I back up all my desktop stuff to my NAS.
Then, I've got an external hard drive plugged into my NAS, AND i back up from the NAS to a cloud service as well. I use backrest to back up my files to my external hard drive every hour (this includes my computer file backups too) and back up my photos every day- I have my phone pics automatically uploading to my NAS- as a replacement to google photos. I also back up my docker program configurations to the external hard drive. I also use backrest to send backups to the cloud service, backblaze, and again, I back up my files every hour and my photos once a day.
Is this overkill? NO. Like, think of all the stuff that could potentially go wrong. It may be unlikely to happen, sure, but is it really so crazy to make sure you'll be prepared if something DOES happen? Hardware can and will fail! You don't wanna lose all your stuff. It's important!
Hope this stuff was useful to you! If you need a bit more help or guidance feel free to join my new discord channel.