In this quick post, I’ll compare some pros and cons of a few cloud services. Since my main computer is a PC, I am most concerned with which services are simple to access from both PC and Mac. (This is not an exhaustive list, of course, but these are the ones I have the most direct experience with over the past four years and which we’ve discussed most often in the Vellum Users group on Facebook.)
Update: Vellum now offers file versioning within the program itself (meaning you can restore an earlier version if needed), and versioning at the file storage level is something this post addresses. I'm glad Vellum has added this option, so finding what works at multiple access points is great for us and our book projects.
Contents
Which cloud storage system works best with Vellum?
One of the biggest nightmares for any self-publishing author is losing access to their projects that they’ve worked so hard to put together. While there are bugs to navigate and risks with any storage, cloud or no, one of the simplest answers may be file versioning (meaning, how many former versions of a file are still available).
For example, if I updated a book last week but I upgraded my operating system this week and now can’t find files where I expected, I may well be able to go back into my file history and restore a previously saved version–even if it was actually deleted somehow.
Different cloud file storage systems have different timeframes available for keeping backups, so that’s the item I’ll focus on here.
First, Dropbox.
I’m starting with Dropbox because, (a) it’s already installed on MacinCloud servers, and (b) … yeah, I wrote a whole chapter on it in my book about how to complete your own book in Vellum (affiliate link).
Dropbox has fairly standard file versioning. It automatically backs up files for 30 days for the basic individual tiers. This even includes recovery of files that were deleted, provided they were saved to your Dropbox account. That number increases to 180-day backups if you are paying for a business or professional tier with multiple users, but pricing at this level is prohibitive for most private users.
Because I have found the free tier sufficient for going between my PC and MacinCloud (and now a 2015 MacBook Pro), I keep wishing for backups longer than 30 days, as I work with multiple clients, mostly returning clients with months between projects. Even though Dropbox has tiers with longer revisioning, I don’t find the value equal to switching to a monthly or annual payout.
Google Drive
Google Drive has a “keep forever” setting (instructions here) to tell it you want to keep ALL versions of a file. (Yes, indefinitely.) This is very appealing, and the main reason I haven’t yet switched is that Dropbox’s accessibility where I usually save files is very intuitive compared to Google Drive; not using my Mac daily, I tend not to want to work on switching access points when I have a project on the brain. Do keep in mind that over time you may want to purge old versions to save Drive space, depending on how large your files are and how much storage you have and use.
Follow the “keep forever” trail to set your files up for rescue later on–which we always hope won’t be needed! See these instructions for how to revert to previous versions or recover deleted files.
A lot of users don’t realize that you don’t have to have a “.gmail” email account to utilize Google’s free or paid storage. Sign up with your non-Gmail address to create a Google storage account, and with the main Google Drive, you also get access to apps like Google Docs, Sheets, and Photos (the ones I personally use most).
iCloud and OneDrive
I am putting both of these together because my experience with them has been very similar. They both will access a PC and Mac system (which many people don’t realize about iCloud–it’s not Mac-only). But in the two-thousand-member Facebook group I co-admin, we have encountered a number of anecdotal situations where OneDrive and iCloud have both proven faulty, even after following directions for file recovery.
Here is how to restore a file version in OneDrive, and here is the same procedure for iCloud files. Do be aware that iCloud’s file recovery can be sketchy.
Hope this helps. 🙂
Happy formatting, and may the clouds be ever in your favor.