The Cloud Paradigm Is Backwards

Have we been suffering under a delusion about cloud computing? During these early years of this amazing paradigm, we’ve acted like the cloud is a place where we can park our data. We’€™ve been using the likes of Gmail and Google Docs to read our mail and create our documents (many of us simply because we don’€™t want to put out our money for desktop software). Then, when we get nervous about where the data is stored, we download it to our PCs or Macs.

It’€™s worked so far. But it could work so much better when you turn the model on its ear. Instead of pulling down an occasional document to your desktop computer, make a copy of the entire Google account cloud-to-cloud. So your Gmail, Google+ photos, contacts, and all the documents on your Google Drive are safe and secure on a second set of servers – not at Google.

Paranoid, Am I?

There’€™s an old adage in the computer business that it’€™s not whether a disk drive will go down, it’€™s when. Frankly Google and most of the other operators of cloud-based systems have done a great job of staying up consistently. But they go down – and sometimes with dire consequences for your data. Only a few weeks ago, Google had a significant outage on Google Talk. I know many people who have occasional problems with Google Voice. And I can’€™t tell you how many times I’€™ve heard the high school kids who collaborate using Google Drive complain that one of their classmates nuked their document forcing them to start the project again.

Bad Habits Hurt Us The Most

It’s not like tools haven’€™t existed to do the backups. Google even provides them so we can make copies of our data from their servers. But with cloud-to-cloud back up systems, who wants to risk a dropped laptop or smart phone causing lost data? Even if we do backup, we don’€™t do it often enough.

Cloud-to-Cloud Reduces The Risk

Cloud-to-cloud back up means you can feel more comfortable that your data will always be there; but you don’€™t have to take the risks of storing it locally. For example, Spinbackup will automatically back up your Google account from Gmail to photos to contacts and documents on secure servers on the Amazon cloud – and they’€™ll do it for free. Up to 2 GB, which is more than most of us have in our Google accounts.

What Does A Cloud Back Up Feel Like?

Trying Spinbackup is almost like looking in your Windows Explorer window. It has a tree structure which separates your mail from your calendar from your contacts, and clicking on any branch will bring you a folder list just like the ones you are used to using. There’€™s almost no learning curve. More importantly, it’€™s ready to set and forget. The free account backs up monthly without you doing a thing; the paid accounts do it daily.

On all accounts, you can do manual backups as often as you wish by clicking a button that looks like the play button on your audio player. And if your Google account is too large for the free or 99 cent Spinbackup accounts, you can pay a few extra dollars each month. With the paid accounts, you can also include additional users.

Once you see this type of backup in action, I doubt you’€™ll want to go back to the old way of either risking your data or relying on manual backup.