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Tl;DR
Arq backup software provides the ultimate sweet spot between ease of access of photos, videos, and documents — in addition to secure reliable data backups of all your files. And a history is kept of your file changes for as long you choose.
Arq also allows you to manage an unlimited amount of data for just under $60 dollars a year with Amazon Cloud Drive. Your mobile phone data; external hard drives; and even network drives can be backed up under a single plan.
A backup solution for a digital nomad with a massive data collection that will never cease to grow.
[/well]Do you have a growing collection of data that is traveling along with you?
Perhaps you are working with video, audio production, or raw image files. And your work as a digital nomad is stockpiling into hundreds of gigabytes, or even terabytes of data on your laptop, smartphone, and external drives.
Without a cloud backup and storage solution, when your external drive dies, your photos die. When your laptop is stolen, months of work have are stolen with it.
Online storage is free and simple to implement, if you only have 15 gigs of precious data to protect. But once you need to backup external drives or 200 plus gigs of files — many cloud based data protection solutions can become too expensive or just a huge hassle to use.
And if you want to backup more than 1 terabyte of data, typically your cloud storage fees will become extraordinary.
For instance, if you want to store anywhere between 2 gigs to 1 terabyte of data with Dropbox, you are looking at a cost of $99 a year. If you need one iota more of data storage, the next cheapest option is $750 a year for a Dropbox Business account.
On top of this, Dropbox is more suited for file sharing than as a proper file backup and recovery solution.
Yes there are dedicated cloud based backup services such as Backblaze, which offer unlimited data storage for just $50 for a year. But if you want to restore a file that you accidentally deleted, there is a multistep process involved, along with a substantial wait.
And if you are unable to backup your external drive within 30 days, your backup is deleted by the Backblaze service. This has been a nagging problem for me, as internet can be extremely slow or nonexistent in many parts of the world.
And Then There is Arq
The backup app, Arq, is the most robust, secure, and user friendly solution for backing up an unlimited amount of data.
Arq itself works with most cloud storage services. Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and Amazon Cloud Drive. There is also support for enterprise storage services you may or may not heard of, such as Google Nearline, Amazon Glacier or S3.
This means that with Arq…
- You can save money, by doubling-up many of the best cloud based storage and file sharing services out there, as a very secure backup solution.
- You can keep versions of your files — which is a backup history — for as far back as you wish. And nothing expires. So there are no worries about losing your data if you haven’t connected your external drive for weeks or even months.
- You can have peace of mind about security and customer support. Arq has been around since 2009, and has earned its trust from a large number of existing users through their use of very secure and well documented methods for storing data privately.
- Simple to use. Wether you are a not-so technical personal or a nerdy control freak about your data.
Truly Unlimited Storage for $60 a Year
As of July, 2015, Amazon’s Cloud Drive is offering unlimited file storage for just under $60 a year.
Arq has your data covered. External drives; SD cards for your mobile and camera devices; and even network drives. Absolutely every storage device that you use with your laptop can be backed up.
On top of this, Cloud Drive makes it convenient to backup and share your mobile photos and videos through their mobile app for iPhone and Android.
How to Get Started in 10 minutes With a Free Trial
Oh, and it continues to get better. You can give Arq a try for 30 days and make sure it works for you and your digital lifestyle, before you ever a pay cent.
Here’s how to get started with Arq in less than 10 minutes:
- Download and install the 30 day trial of Arq for your mac or pc.
- Signup for Cloud Drive’s 90 day trial.
- Download and install Amazon Cloud Drive for your mac or pc, along with their mobile app (iPhone or Android).
- When you run Arq for the first time it will ask for your backup destination. Choose Amazon Cloud Drive, and then proceed to provide your login credentials.
- Click “Set Up Backups”, and choose a passphrase.
And that’s it for your basic setup. [well]
For My Peeps (Computer Nerds and Geeks)
If you understand your data needs fairly well, you can pay $1 a month per 100gb when using Google Nearline or Amazon Glacier. Data transfer costs will be in addition to this. [/well]