Samsung Galaxy S6 Back-up for your phone

Inders99

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Ok...so the SD card is gone in the GS6, not uncommon these days for many phones. So we lose a measure of security of having a "device" on our phones that we could switch out if need be or it gets full. But the SD card doesn't do much if we lose the phone or it's stolen or similar.

For some, that scenario could be a disaster. Those who carry around 128gb of music, vids, photos, that could represent a huge loss, and paying for that much storage on a cloud would get expensive.

So how do some of you back up your device if you don't pay for storage on a cloud service? I have a nifty Sandisk 64 gizmo that ibcop recommended to me but in order for that to be effective you have to manually back it up on a regular basis. It's fine for me but how do you heavy users do it?
 

t11rmh

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Have everything duplicated on my NAS'S, laptops, pc's, two cloud services. Phone will never be the only storage point for anything.

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Golfdriver97

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Re: Back-up for your phone

I don't have a Galaxy phone, but my last 2 of my last 3 have been no sd card. I made a calendar event for once a month to remind me to back up my device to my PC (pretty much the same thing as the additional device you are referring to). When that reminder goes off, I review what info I have on my phone, delete what can be deleted, back up what needs to be and I am done.
 

Inders99

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Re: Back-up for your phone

Have everything duplicated on my NAS'S, laptops, pc's, two cloud services. Phone will never be the only storage point for anything.

Posted via the Android Central App

One thing about NASs is that they can be lost during a fire, theft, whatever. The likelihood of a fire is low but you never know, especially with so much critical data being stored on our devices these days.

Maybe a combination of some critical data on a free cloud service and the bulk of "semi-critical" on NASs like you do is the right combination.
 

jcp007

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Re: Back-up for your phone

I don't have a Galaxy phone, but my last 2 of my last 3 have been no sd card. I made a calendar event for once a month to remind me to back up my device to my PC (pretty much the same thing as the additional device you are referring to). When that reminder goes off, I review what info I have on my phone, delete what can be deleted, back up what needs to be and I am done.

Having a reminder to backup your saved items mitigates major loss. It also means that with sd card slots becoming less common that we need to stop being digital packrats. Carry only the pictures,documents, songs and videos that mean the most or are most often used or needed. Things rarely accessed if ever won't be missed. I haven't stored anything in so long on my card that I don't miss it. Having a 32 GB base storage model with less Samsung bloat and a lighter TouchWiz footprint, there should be plenty of useable storage. I have to admit that a 16GB card would have been sufficient but I put the max expandable storage supported by my GS4 with its 16GB base storage primarily out of vanity.
 

jcp007

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Re: Back-up for your phone

I don't have a Galaxy phone, but my last 2 of my last 3 have been no sd card. I made a calendar event for once a month to remind me to back up my device to my PC (pretty much the same thing as the additional device you are referring to). When that reminder goes off, I review what info I have on my phone, delete what can be deleted, back up what needs to be and I am done.

I know that this is a newb question. I will remove my card from my GS4 when I sell it but are the songs, movies and other files stored on the phone itself automatically backed up to my google account?
 

Golfdriver97

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Re: Back-up for your phone

I know that this is a newb question. I will remove my card from my GS4 when I sell it but are the songs, movies and other files stored on the phone itself automatically backed up to my google account?

Depends on where you got the songs/movies and such. If you got them from Play, yes. They keep a record of what you have purchased. If the files are from anything else, no.

What other files did you have in mind?
 

Crashdamage

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Re: Back-up for your phone

I have everything backed up similar to t11mh. We need to keep 2 phones, 2 tablets and 2 PCs, 1 Linux and 1 Win 7, all backed up and everything synced. 5 email accounts, 4 contact lists, documents, photos, calendars, etc etc.

That's a lot of work to do manually, plus manual backups can miss the most recent changes or additions. So I've automated most of it.

All email accounts are IMAP so mail stays in the cloud as well as on devices. Google stuff is backed up to Google accounts. Photos taken are automatically immediately uploaded to Google Drive. Some things are manually backed up and sent to the appropriate Google Drive storage for that account.

We have 5 Google accounts. One Google account has 1TB storage on Google Drive that's included with our Google Fiber service. That serves as a kinda master storage depot. We also have a free Dropbox account, used to backup our most critical business and personal files.

Cloud HQ service is used to sync the Dropbox and other 4 Google Drive accounts to the master Google Drive in real time. InSync is used to keep everything on the master Google Drive storage synced to local storage on the Linux PC and the Google Drive desktop client handles that chore for the Win 7 PC. Dropbox clients on both PCs also sync Dropbox locally separately.

On the mobile devices Google Drive and Dropbox apps or FX File Explorer make everything available tap-tap easy without taking up storage space. FolderSync handles sync of a few things to the mobiles, as well as instant photo uploads to Google Drive.

All this means we have backups to multiple locations, both cloud and local, and it's mostly automatic and done in real time. It took some thought and time to setup, but once done files sync around everywhere with no effort required.

Our house, which includes our home offices, personal records and records for 2 businesses, could burn down and we wouldn't lose any important records, photos or saved music. I ain't taking any chances.

Android since v1.0. Linux user since 2001.
 
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Golfdriver97

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Re: Back-up for your phone

Having a reminder to backup your saved items mitigates major loss. It also means that with sd card slots becoming less common that we need to stop being digital packrats.

I don't take many photos, and what I do is automatically backed up to Photos, once I connect to my wifi. I don't download that many documents/files/etc...so once per month works for me. If someone does that sort of stuff a lot, it can be changed to once per 2 weeks, or even once per week. The once per week might seem inconvenient, but if you look at it this way, if something happens to the phone, you are out, at worst, 6 days of data

I am inclined to agree with the packrat idea. I used to carry about 75% of my music with me when I had my S3. I have cut that down to about 100 songs, and not even taking a GB of data (less than 700 MB to be more accurate). I have found that these 100 of my most favorite songs, the ones I would listen to when I had most of my library with me, works just as well, and saves me space on my device.
 

jcp007

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Re: Back-up for your phone

Depends on where you got the songs/movies and such. If you got them from Play, yes. They keep a record of what you have purchased. If the files are from anything else, no.

What other files did you have in mind?

Excel spreadsheets and pictures. Movies and "albums" are from Google Play so, like my apps, not worried about those. Do I just connect to my laptop and back up the spreadsheets and pictures. The Pictures are backed up the Gallery app, no?
 

jcp007

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Re: Back-up for your phone

I don't take many photos, and what I do is automatically backed up to Photos, once I connect to my wifi. I don't download that many documents/files/etc...so once per month works for me. If someone does that sort of stuff a lot, it can be changed to once per 2 weeks, or even once per week. The once per week might seem inconvenient, but if you look at it this way, if something happens to the phone, you are out, at worst, 6 days of data

I am inclined to agree with the packrat idea. I used to carry about 75% of my music with me when I had my S3. I have cut that down to about 100 songs, and not even taking a GB of data (less than 700 MB to be more accurate). I have found that these 100 of my most favorite songs, the ones I would listen to when I had most of my library with me, works just as well, and saves me space on my device.

When I travel, on business or with my family, I manage movies and songs through Google Play so that I have only the movies that I want to watch or songs that I want to listen to. Everything is else stays on the account. Even being probably one of the oldest people on this site, I have tried to revolt against being a digital packrat.
 

Golfdriver97

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Re: Back-up for your phone

Do I just connect to my laptop and back up the spreadsheets and pictures.

Yup. Should be a simple drag and drop. Depending on the version of Android, yes the pictures are in the Gallery/Photos app.

To be honest, I have even been moved to the point where I use Google Sheets for my spreadsheets. I don't even need to keep them on my phone. The servers allow me to make changes on the fly and save at any point when I am done typing for a few seconds.
 

jcp007

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Re: Back-up for your phone

Yup. Should be a simple drag and drop. Depending on the version of Android, yes the pictures are in the Gallery/Photos app.

To be honest, I have even been moved to the point where I use Google Sheets for my spreadsheets. I don't even need to keep them on my phone. The servers allow me to make changes on the fly and save at any point when I am done typing for a few seconds.

On latest,KitKat AT&T version.
 

smooth4lyfe

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Re: Back-up for your phone

I do use Cloud storage, but I also have two 1TB external drives which I save all my stuff
I'll also get a standalone MP3 player so I can put my SD card in that to play music
 

berdinkerdickle

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Re: Back-up for your phone

Google docs through Google Drive is something I've used with my business for some time.
You can even share certain files for coordinating with others.
I also use PhotoBucket to keep my pictures synced.
 

Coney718

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Re: Back-up for your phone

This is the one thing I like about the iPhone. Everything (music, pics, apps, videos)can be backed up to one central location..iTunes. The only downside of that is you also need iTunes to add anything to the device which I hate.
 

Crashdamage

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Re: Back-up for your phone

That's one of the things I *don't* like about the iPhone. It does easy backups which is good, but because of all the proprietary iStuff it's nearly impossible to do multiple backups to multiple local and remote locations. I don't consider backups complete until I've done that. I don't feel safe trusting all our critical personal and business files to one company and only one cloud storage service.

Android since v1.0. Linux user since 2001.
 

jcp007

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Re: Back-up for your phone

Android ecosystem has the advantage of more,personal control and customization to let you decide what's best for you instead of the other way around.
 

Coney718

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Re: Back-up for your phone

That's one of the things I *don't* like about the iPhone. It does easy backups which is good, but because of all the proprietary iStuff it's nearly impossible to do multiple backups to multiple local and remote locations. I don't consider backups complete until I've done that. I don't feel safe trusting all our critical personal and business files to one company and only one cloud storage service.

Android since v1.0. Linux user since 2001.

You have a point but its also more convenient if you have to restore you phone you can restore everything back how it was with virtually one click since everything is one location. You dont have to get your pics from one place, music from other and so on. But I see what you're saying.
 

Crashdamage

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Re: Back-up for your phone

Did you read my post #8 in this thread? That's what I consider backups. For my purposes security trumps convenience, but I've tried to have the best of both.

Besides personal files that would be a shame to lose, we run 2 businesses that absolutely, positively cannot have files lost. No excuses. I don't - I can't, I won't - depend on Apple or Google alone to do that.

I understand that most users needs aren't so critical. But when they lose those baby pictures or hundreds of contacts they sure seem that way.

Android since v1.0. Linux user since 2001.
 

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