My Windows Server 2012 Essentials Shares currently contains approximately 4.3 TBs of data. Much of that data I could consider a backup of information from another source. For example:
- Client Computer Backups
- Videos (rips of my DVD collection)
- Music (rips of my CD collection)
- Recorded TV
- User data (downloads, documents, etc.)
All of that data I could regenerate if needed. It would be painful and time consuming, but it could be regenerated. Then there are folders of data that I would consider irreplaceable or very difficult to replace, namely:
- Pictures (just the digital ones!)
- Music (various MP3s I have collected over the years)
- User data (i.e. personal documents, etc.)
The most important and irreplaceable of that group is my Pictures Share. It is not real large when compared to the other Shares, only 4.7 GBs. That number could swell to many times that if and when I ever digitize all those old paper photographs we have laying around.
Those analogue picture are truly irreplaceable at this time, but that is a backup problem I have to solve another day. Today, I want to make sure I have an off-site backup of those irreplaceable digital memories in the event of a total property loss. I could purchase replacement DVDs; I could purchase replacement CDs; I cannot go back in time and recreate a snapshot of my family’s past.
To protect those precious memories, I need to have an off-site backup plan. I could create a backup on physical media, store it in some offsite location, and rotate those backups on a regular basis.
Or I could store a backup in a Cloud location, such as my SkyDrive account. With the right tools, I could even automate the process. Before I can backup anything, however, I need to first install SkyDrive on my Essentials server.
