Back up those files friends!
I get four or five emails PER MONTH about people losing all their embroidery files on their computers. I am always happy to resend the links to re-download your purchases, but since it’s the first day of a new month it’s good to be reminded to back things up.
A lot of people store their embroidery files directly on their computer, which is really a dangerous place to keep them.
Why? Well, your computer is not infallible. The hard drive can be corrupted, you could get a virus, the whole computer can be destroyed in a home disaster even be stolen. Your computer is NOT a good place to keep your files.
Some people use an external hard drive. I think extra storage is great, but these can fail just like a computer or laptop internal storage device can, so it’s still not a safe backup.
What about CD’s of USB’s (dare I mentione floppy disks?). These again are only temporary storage devices. USB’s are great for getting designs to your machine or working between computers. They are so convenient and portable! But they too can fail! I’ve personally “worn” a couple out, like physically they just fall apart after repeated use. CD’s are even more fragile. They scratch, crack and warp way more easily than you might imagine.
What’s the solution, then?
I always recommend a reliable online or cloud based storage system. Personally, I use both Google Drive and Dropbox (yes, backed up to each other!) as well as iCloud storage. I pay yearly for the peace of mind of keeping my business files, photographs, and embroidery designs “in the cloud” instead of at my house. This means if something happens to my computer I can still access my stuff from wherever. It means I can work “anywhere” literally, from public access computers, from a friend’s house if I need to, from my iPhone, or other device, really anywhere.
I’m not getting paid by either of these places to tell you to back up your files (and most likely you don’t need nearly as much storage as I use in designing embroidery files for commercial use!), but I plead with you earnestly to spend some time backing up your files. You never know what could happen!
By the way, both google drive and Dropbox are both free up to a certain amount of storage, and even their paid plans are very affordable considering the heartache of lost files.
If something big enough in the world happens to either Dropbox or Google there is something really big and bad happening in the world, and we most likely won’t be worrying about embroidery at that point, if you get my drift.
Go back up your files, friends! I want your embroidery files to have long, happy lives!