Coping with Data Loss

This is more just a poor me/venting type post. This past week I was locked out of my iCloud and lost the last 2 plus years of pictures. Once I can regain access to my account I will still have some of them, I'm grateful for that but I could kick myself for not backing up the last photos. I'm a busy mom and it was always something I had on my to do list but I never got around to. I'm sick, anxious and can't sleep. This has happened before and I eventually was able to cope and move on but it's so hard. I have 3 children so all these memories are lost. I'm lucky I upload almost daily on facebook so I still have many, many photos there. This will never happen again. What do you recommend I do with my new photos and what's left? Of course I will update daily/weekly to icloud but I would prefer an outside source as well.

5 comments

Lesson learned. 3-2-1 backup. 2 backups a the minimum. Cloud is just someone else's computer and anything can happen.
Get at least 1 old Google pixel (1-5). Free unlimited uploads. Create 5 accounts. Duplicate all the time.

get a backblaze account. Dump there.

Amazon glacier. Cheap store.

get a MS one drive 1TB (maybe you can get some school discounts)

learn rclone and run scripts automatically to upload to all these services.

for all DH- nerds: though I know mom's running Supermicro not everyone has time.
- So out of touch. A mom of 3 using icloud, and you blab about rclone, amazon glacier and whatever.
  
  Sometimes I feel everybody repeat over and over their nerdy lesson without reading the post, I feel this sub is often useless...
Well, as others said, ideally, follow the 3-2-1 backup rule: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/the-3-2-1-backup-strategy/. An external drive plus some other cloud storage like Backblaze Personal or iDrive.
What do you recommend I do with my new photos and what's left?

Keep local backups.
Buy three hard drives.
One to serve as your main copy, and two more externals. Copy your data to the main drive then repeat that process to ensure each of your three drives has everything stored on it. Go to your safe deposit box and store one of the external hard drives there. While back at home, keep storing your photos on the main drive. Every week or so plug the external in and sync it so it is up to date. You can use something like FreeFileSync for this. In 3 to 6 months, go swap the external with the one in the safe deposit box and sync the drive when you get home. In another 3 to 6 months, go swap externals again. If you have an event where you have lots of precious media you created, consider taking a trip to the safe deposit box sooner. If you go a while without taking any good photos, you can put it off.

Your 3 children can be the biggest threat to your data depending on their age.
Hard drives are fragile and dropping them is bad. Don't give them the opportunity to knock them all over at once, and if age appropriate tell them how important it is to not drop/move/knock them over. If you have a safe at home store your external in there when not in use. If one gets damaged, you'll have two extra copies while you order a replacement.
If you don't have a lot of data (1,000 GB or more) consider using external SSDs since they are drop proof and cheap at those low capacities.