Advice: Back That Thang Up!

If you are a developer (or anyone that stores important data on computers, really) it is important to backup your files. Crashes do happen, and it would be a shame to lose days, weeks, months, or years (yikes!) of progress without having anything to fall back on. Of course, I had to learn this lesson the hard way myself, nearly failing a university class because my hard drive crashed!

There are a variety of alternatives that one can use when backing up their files. Dropbox is one of my personal favorites. You can use the Dropbox site to upload your files, or download the application to store and synchronize you files across multiple computers. Initially, you will be allotted a small amount of space to store your files, but you can pay to upgrade your account. You can also link to Twitter or Facebook, answers some questions, or refer friends to gain more space. If you want to sign up for Dropbox, you can do so using this link; we're friends, right ;)?

Google Drive is another service that is useful for storing and sharing files. I haven't used it much, but it's free and you get 5 GB of storage space just for having a Google account.

Yet another alternative is a bit old fashioned, but it still works. You can buy a USB thumb drive and use it to store important files. If you have a huge number of files to backup, you may want to invest in an external hard drive and copy your files over. I like to use this method along with Dropbox to regularly backup my files.

One final method of backing up files that we discuss is one that should be familiar with developers: a source code management system (SCM). Not only will your files be backed up, but you will also be able to rollback to previous revisions if something goes horribly wrong.The program or plugin that you use depends on the platform that you are developing for and the tools that you are using to develop. Git is an example of a free, open source SCM.

Hopefully this advice will help you, and you won't lose any of your precious projects in the future. Happy deving!