We have covered organizing embroidery designs as well as deciding what files to keep and what you should delete. None of that matters unless you have a plan in place for keeping your files safe by backing them up.
What is the Cloud?
We typically download and save embroidery files on our computer hard drives or thumb drives. The cloud stores data on remote servers, much like streaming services allow us to access shows, movies, and music.
Benefits of Cloud Storage
Besides easy access, the cloud has enormous storage capacity. Many offer syncing capabilities, meaning that they can be set to automatically backup files from certain folders or even your entire computer without you having to think about it. It's just done while you work in the background. Bonnie uses a service called Carbonite to back up her computers in case disaster were to strike and she had a computer failure.
Services have various benefits, such as customer support, depending upon whether or not they have a subscription fee. Even free cloud storage offers as much as 2GB of space, which holds a tremendous amount of embroidery design files, with the option to upgrade to more robust versions.
Other Storage
Thumb drives and portable hard drives are other options for saving embroidery files. If you use this method, be aware that thumb drives and hard drives can and will fail over time. So make sure you replace older drives as soon as there's any sign of not running properly.
The Golden Rule
No matter how you store your embroidery designs, make sure you use an antivirus program and always have a backup. Keep your original set of files on your computer, thumb drive, or portable hard drive plus another copy that is stored either in the cloud or on portable storage devices.
Those two sets of files should not be in the same place. In case of catastrophe, you will lose everything if your backup files are kept in the same place.
Popular Cloud Programs
Here are some of the more popular cloud services:
Nothing is foolproof. Cloud files can be lost, computers can crash, and thumb drives can fail. As long as you have more than one copy, you can stitch on!
Check out a comparison of The Best Cloud Storage and File Sharing Services of 2020 here.
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