Backup & Sync Google Drive to Another Cloud Store.

alanclare · February 20, 2020, 05:46:15 AM

I get nervous at the thought of the collection of books and sheets that I have stored in my Google Drive account (about 10GB) becoming corrupted or lost. Could I synchronise it to another account, as a kind of insurance?

Alan

acparker · February 20, 2020, 06:03:09 AM

Hmmm,

I have a folder on my computer that is synced to Google Drive, so that any changes I make in one are made in the other. If I synced that folder also to OneDrive for example, would that do what you want?

Adam

alanclare · February 20, 2020, 06:39:54 AM

Adam

Thanks for the thought. So I'd have the master collection on my laptop (perhaps on a usb memory stick?) and any changes made to that would be synced to both Google Drive and another cloud store e.g. Microsoft OneDrive? Kind of belt-and-braces and more braces.

Alan

Joe H · February 20, 2020, 10:55:32 AM

Alan,

I would forget the cloud, it is just someone else's hard drive in a commercial building somewhere in the world. Why not just buy a 1 terabyte backup drive (they are cheap) and store your files on that. I recently bought a 2 1/2" 500GB Hard Drive for $30 USD. I've backed up all my files.

It's a good option and no one will be snooping in my private business (like the cloud)

Joe H

alanclare · February 20, 2020, 11:16:07 AM

Joe

Sometimes, I get so preoccupied with finding a solution to a problem, that I can't see the obvious answer right in front my nose. I just need to take a step back and the "problem" disappears. Thank you so much for pointing this out to me.

Alan

alanclare · February 20, 2020, 11:35:22 AM

This raises the question of the most efficient way to move/copy the stuff on Google Drive on to my external hard drive. Any offers anyone - please?

Alan

Joe H · February 20, 2020, 01:44:10 PM

Alan,

I don't use the cloud. But I'm wondering... can't you just download the files to your computer?

Joe H

alanclare · February 20, 2020, 03:06:26 PM

Quote from: Joe H on February 20, 2020, 01:44:10 PM
Alan,

I don't use the cloud. But I'm wondering... can't you just download the files to your computer?

Joe H

Joe

I expected to be able to, but I can't. I'm supposed to use Google Backup & Sync. I've installed it three times, tried to understand it, and uninstalled it three times. Quite frankly, some of this Google stuff terrifies me.

Alan

wersianer · February 21, 2020, 05:58:39 AM

Hello Alan,

I use the free version of Synchredible and have been very happy with it for many years:

https://www.ascomp.de/index.php?php=prog&prog=synchredible

acparker · February 21, 2020, 06:37:59 AM

Yeah, Google stuff can be a convoluted mess.

To download ALL Google Drive stuff at once, go to https://takeout.google.com/.
This site will allow you to download *ALL* your data on google -- Gmail, Blogger, Google Photos, etc.

Select just the Google Drive, and click the All Drive Data Included. That will bring up a window with the file structure of you Drive, and you can fine tune what you want to save.
Then scroll waaaay down, and click the next button for delivery options. Then click the Create export button.

Hope that helps!

Adam

alanclare · February 21, 2020, 07:53:29 AM

My thanks to the three of you for your excellent advice. I've managed to transfer all the stuff that really matters (Fakebooks etc) to my external hard drive which I periodically backup through my wifi to a Western Digital 1Tb drive.

For a few years now I've been happily grabbing pdf's which appealed to me and carelessly stuffing them into a Google Drive without giving a thought to "what if" a change of circumstance or a mistake on my part. It's only recently that it dawned on me that I really should look into this - and with all of your help I've now got a system where my main collection is on my hard disk and it's the Google Drive which is the backup.

Alan

frozzers · February 21, 2020, 09:38:03 AM

Alan

That's a sensible option you've taken there.

The risk with having a back up only on an external drive is what would you do if you are burgled and your equipment is stolen or, worse, it gets destroyed in a fire?

I know some people who take backing up so seriously they have backups on 2 or more external drives stored away from their houses. That seems a bit over the top for me but I'm not storing a lot of sensitive or valuable information which they probably are.

Having a back up in the cloud is a good compromise and achieves the same result. And of course it saves having to buy an external drive.

Cheers

Chris