For pictures-> picasa
For docs ->google docs
For music -> google music
For video (short) -> youtube
I got into a habit of always uploading my pics to picasa and my random docs to google docs from my phones/tablets because I routinely reflash my phone and tablets, and some of these devices don’t have a separate sd card, but rather use part of internal storage as a “sdcard-like” partition, which can get accidentally wiped if you make a mistake.
The pictures I take with my DSLR I’ve also uploaded to picasa if they are jpeg. It’s slightly more difficult though if you shoot RAW (that’s where carbonite etc comes in). Also, my picture sizes have eaten more space up recently since I switched cameras to a canon 7D.
For video, I don’t have a really good solution if they are totally long. I like youtube, but it takes too long and there are size constraints…. I use to use picasa also for short videos, but you can’t re-download videos you upload to picasa.
For all the phones/tablets, I run clockworksmod recovery image to grap a backup of the device, and then upload the backed up images to the cloud. I’ve written some scripts and tools to do this to copy this onto my local computer, and then use carbonite to backup them up like everything else.
My next step is to be able to do incremental backups. That way if I do lose my phone/tablet, I can do a remote wipe and do a restore onto another phone/tablet. There is usually no data that is stored in my sdcard partition, because all that data is stored in the cloud (pictures,video,documents,etc).
(Note Android cloud service for backup doesn’t really work..It only backs up application data, and even then, it doesn’t always work).
In addition, I’ve stopped keeping paper files around. I use an app “CamScanner” to take pictures of my documents (bills, doctor’s notes, receipts,etc)… This app converts a picture to a PDF, which I then store in google docs.
For music, I use google music. Amazon has a competing service. But I don’t mind storing music in compressed format since I’m not an audiophile.
For the extremely paranoid, in using picasa/youtube/googledocs/googlemusic, I create a separate account for each purpose, and create a backup account for each account….
So for example,
*pictures/videos/documents concerning my kid is in her own account (say “kid1”), and there is a corresponding kid1backup account containing exactly the same data.
*pictures/videos/documents concerning me is an a different account, and there is a backup of that account too.
I upload each picture or document twice, to the account and account backup (ok, I have a script that does this)…
Also, I never keep the account and accountbackup on the same smartphone or tablet.
For example, tablet might contain myaccount and kid1, while phone contains myaccountbackup and kid1backup.
I do this in case one of my accounts gets hacked… I have a backup account containing the same data…
And losing any one single device (tablet/phone) doesn’t compromise accountX and accountXbackup at the same time.
BTW: data backup/restore/remote wipe will be a big business for smartphones and tablets….Think about it….It’s worse than losing your wallet.
