August 29th marked our 5th year on Elance and in business. In those 5 years, you can bet that we’ve made great strides in our business processes and efficiency. One of the more recent changes that we’ve made is to move our files and folders to the “cloud.” We had several reasons for making this change and in this blog I’m going to walk you through what we used to do, why it wasn’t the best option and why we’ve found online storage to be the best option for us as a writing business.
Computers and External Hard Drives Crash
In the past 5 years, I estimate that we’ve had 10 different computers and laptops. When you’re online nearly 17 hours per day either writing, emailing, researching or just surfing the web, that amount of constant use can really wear out your typical computer. We originally used nothing but laptops, but after going through so many, we eventually decided that we should probably switch to desktop computers for our “in office” computers and then only use the laptops when we aren’t in the office, either around the house, out during the day running errands or traveling. This increased the life of our laptops and we found we were simply more efficient in the office on the desktops.
Originally, my back-up system consisted of CDs. I would backup my computer to CDs and save all of my article samples, eBooks, client work, etc. on CDs. I had one flash drive when I started Words You Want and it was just a little 125mb drive that I’d actually washed in the washer a few times while in college. Flash drives were relatively new around the time we started Words You Want and a 1 GB drive was expensive. External storage options and sizes have really come a long way in just 5 years.
Eventually, I moved to a larger external hard drive. I think it has about 160 GB. What I did learn was that those external drives that use your computer’s power via USB to run and operate can actually die rather easily. The motor on our drive died on us and we ended up having to pay about $300 to have all of our data and article samples retrieved from the crashed drive. We then moved to a larger 300 GB external drive that uses its own power source. It’s still running strong today and is about 3 years old. I have about 100 GB of space left on it as well.
In between all of our external hard drives and flash drives, we were going through about two computers a year as well, so about twice a year we were starting fresh and having to migrate our important files around to new computers, which is a major pain. We now try to not save anything on our actual computers and save everything on external drives or our new online storage – or both.
By the way, all of our old computers have been handed down to friends and family. They were still good for occasional use, but not ongoing consistent abuse that we put them through.
File Management
As a company, we do dozens of projects on a weekly basis ranging from a single press release to a hundred-page eBook. We also have a team of writers and they have assignments that they have to get to us at the end of each day. In the early days, everything was done via email. Writers emailed in their completed work and we would even email files and folders between each other in the office in order to turn work into clients, proof, etc. This meant we were sending a ridiculous number of emails back and forth all the time and saving dozens of files to our computer’s memory. The problem is that email is not always foolproof. You never know when an email is going to go missing in cyberspace somewhere and this could create major issues depending on the importance of that message.
In office, we definitely had to find a different and more efficient method of working and managing files. So, we set up a network in the office and had shared folders between all of our computers. We thought that this was really great because we didn’t have to send so many emails back and forth. However, the problem was that when we traveled, it meant that we had to take our folders with us and at times these could be rather large. It also made it difficult to ensure that we were working on our most recent payroll files, assignment master sheets, etc. It was simply too easy to lose something or use the wrong version of something. We operated like this for a long time.
In the meantime, we would have completed projects that needed to be saved and archived somewhere, so I would save them on my computer for awhile and back-up everything every so often to the external drive.
Just this past November, we finally found a way to avoid all of these issues when we discovered how online storage could help us.
Dropbox – A Sanity Saver
I was introduced to Dropbox through a client who requested that I share a folder with her for ease of turning in work to her. When the work was completed, I could just drop it into the folder and in a few seconds, it would show up on her end as well. Dropbox is actually an application you install on your computer, but you can also access your files online. In addition, they also save files that you delete! Ever deleted a file and then realized you’d just made a huge mistake? With Dropbox, you just log in, click on your folder and click to view deleted files. You can then choose which version to reactivate.
You can install Dropbox on all of your computers and when they are online, they will sync and all of your files are instantly available to you as long as you have an Internet connection. Let’s say you have files saved on your office computer and you go out of town for the weekend, all you have to do is get online with your laptop and any files that are on your office computer are available to you. Let’s say you don’t have an Internet connection though, you will be able to access the files that are on your laptop and when you do get online any changes you made to those files will sync and be available on your office computer. You can save everything to Dropbox, go out of town, get online and everything in Dropbox is available to you.
We’ve never had any issues with the Dropbox other than the occasional slow syncing. This usually only happens if our Internet connection is slow or the files are very large.
In addition to the ability to access your files no matter where you are, you can also share folders. Now, instead of emailing their work to us, our writers simply drop their work in their Dropbox folder at the end of the day. When we go to turn in a project, the files are there waiting for us. We no longer have to worry about whether or not an email didn’t go through and that a project is lost in cyberspace somewhere.
Easy to Use and Nearly Disaster Proof
As long as you know how to save a file or a folder, you can use online storage. It’s incredibly easy to use and it’s incredibly convenient. There’s nothing technical involved. You just save your files to the specified folder and that’s it. The program syncs, your information is saved online and you can access it from anywhere.
Another key benefit to this is that should something happen to your computer, like it crashes, or let’s say your house catches fire and you lose your computer. In the past, you would have been, well, screwed. There’s really no nicer way to put it. If you have everything saved offsite somewhere in online storage, then you won’t be screwed. Sure, you’d have to get a new computer, but once you logged on, all of your files will be there waiting for you.
As a writer and business owner, I try my best to keep a copy of work for my clients. The amount of time I am able to do so depends on several factors. In the past, I could save backup copies for about as long as my computer or external hard drive lasted. With online storage, I’ve been able to extend the amount of time I keep a copy of work completed because I can save it in online storage and once I begin to meet my quota there, I move the oldest files to my external hard drive. So, if a client ever loses a project, I will likely have a back-up copy up to a year or longer later.
Conclusion
I would definitely urge anybody considering online storage to take the plunge. It’s really not that expensive when you consider the amount of space you can get and the level of convenience it offers. It’s great for saving work projects, photos, family documents and anything else that you may need access to when you’re away from home. Most services come out to about $5 per month and Dropbox even provides you 2.5 GB for free and if you share folders with new users, you are rewarded with more free space. Should you need more space, you simply buy a monthly or yearly plan based on your needs. Too many things can go wrong with your computer and external hard drives. It’s better to have a second or third layer of back up no matter what business you’re in.
