Basics
Core backup concepts, in plain language
A handful of ideas explain most of what matters about keeping your files safe and accessible. Here they are, short and plain.
- Syncing
- Keeping the same set of files updated across two or more devices or locations automatically, usually through a background process that watches for changes.
- Backup
- A separate copy of a file kept specifically so that it survives the loss, damage, or accidental change of the original — distinct from a synced copy, which mirrors changes rather than preserving an earlier state.
- Version history
- A record of earlier saved states of a file, letting you step back to a version from before a mistake, an overwrite, or an unwanted edit.
- Redundancy
- Having more than one copy of important data, ideally stored in more than one physical location or on more than one type of storage.
- Local storage
- Files kept on a drive, device, or disk you physically hold — fast to access, but exposed to whatever happens to that one physical object.
- Off-site copy
- A copy of your files kept somewhere other than your main location, so a single local event cannot destroy every copy at once.
- Data portability
- How easily you can take your own files and information out of a tool or service in a format you can actually reuse elsewhere.
- File format
- The particular way a file encodes its content — some formats are widely documented and likely to remain readable for decades, others depend on one specific program.
- Metadata (for files)
- Information describing a file rather than its content: when it was created, when it was last changed, its size, and sometimes where it came from.
- Bit rot
- The slow, quiet corruption of stored data over time, caused by physical media degrading rather than by anything a user did.
- Service shutdown
- The point at which a tool or platform stops operating, which can cut off access to anything you only kept stored there.
- Folder structure
- The way files are organized into nested folders — a consistent structure makes files easier to find years later, without relying on memory alone.