In yesterday’s Electronic Records Care on Facebook, we talked about organizing your
files of important family records and digital photographs. Now we want to talk
about where these files are stored. When it comes to your important digital
records, your storage needs can grow quickly. You want digital storage
that meets your capacity needs, will last, is easily accessible but secure from
outside threats, and fits your budget. The main solution options
generally boil down to a) a local, external hard drive that connects to your
computer by USB or other connection, or b) online-based cloud storage you
access through the internet. Both options have their pros and cons.
External hard drives are physical storage media that connect
to your computer by USB port. They offer quick access to your documents
and photos from your computer, can be configured to automatically back up files
saved on them, are safe from hackers, and can be purchased in ample storage
unit sizes (500GB-2TB+). They are, however, susceptible to local risks
such as fire, water damage, and theft, are only accessible from a single
location unless disconnected and moved, and moving them puts them at risk of
physical damage. Even the best external hard drives have a shelf-life of
approximately three to ten years before they are at risk of spontaneous
failure. They generally have a linear pricing structure, and could cost
you approximately $0.10-$0.50 per GB, depending on the quality of the hard
drive.
Cloud storage uploads your documents and photos to off-site
storage through the internet rather than saving them on a physical drive
connected to your computer. Cloud storage is accessed online by logging
into your account with the cloud storage site, accessible wherever you go so
long as you have an internet connection. With cloud storage, your records
are kept safe from local threats of fire, water damage, and theft, and are
easily shareable. However, using cloud storage does come with
risks. You have less control over your materials with cloud storage as
they are stored off-site, and you may not know exactly how secure the cloud’s
servers really are. Your records could be vulnerable to hackers, access
can be slower than with external hard drives, and the access restrictions could
leave your family records inaccessible if only one person has the username and
password information for the account. Cloud-based storage also involves
on-going costs that have to be paid periodically to continue having access to
that storage; if prices rise past what you feel you can pay, you may be left
with having to find an alternative storage solution in a hurry. Depending on
the amount of storage you need and the features offered by the storage service
– file encryption, multiple restore points, geographically-dispersed servers –
costs could range anywhere from pennies to $5+ per GB of storage. Some
cloud storage options like Dropbox and Microsoft OneDrive come with a limited
amount of free storage, so if you do not have a need for a greater amount of
storage, these free options might be a good choice.
We generally advocate for a hybrid solution: a physical
hard-drive for your main storage needs, with back-up copies saved to the cloud.
If something happens to one, you will still have access to the other, and will
not have lost anything. We will talk more about this tomorrow, when we consider
questions about backing up your digital files.
