Backup your work easily & for free!

Dropbox is one of many ‘cloud’ services which have sprung up over the last couple of years. Whereas it is a service some would have heard of it is a tool which I believe everybody should use. Dropbox is a free piece of software which installs with ease onto any laptop (Macs too!). The name may appear to be self explanatory and its function and purpose may appear to blur along with the many other cloud services you can use but it stands out to me for a few reasons. Compared to backing up your important files online or onto a USB stick the problem is short of having special software to backup your files on a schedule its likely, like me, you will eventually forget and thats the end of you having a backup.

Dropbox operates by syncing any files you have in your ‘dropbox’ with its online servers. The free package gives you 2GB of free storage space so unless you’re a rocket scientist that should be more than enough storage to protect your university files. If you open a file in your dropbox and change it there’s no need to remember to back it up, because dropbox does all the hard work for you. In addition to this you can easily access your dropbox from any browser so if you ever find yourself with a spare hour on campus and you’ve left your laptop at home you can carry on with your work on any university workstation!

Now whilst the information up until now might not excite many this next feature is what really makes it for me. Not only does dropbox automatically backup your files, and make them accessible online but it also stores ‘previous versions’. Whilst the scenario of you accidently saving over your work may be a rare one I personally think just having the piece of mind that its there is always welcomed. Finally if you have a desktop and a laptop, or a laptop and a tablet, or any two devices which your always interchanging between then having dropbox on both on them ensures you always have the most up to date files on your device without ever worrying about having to copy across important files.

The appeal of this bit of software may not be there for everybody but I believe for the small time it takes to set up dropbox is an invaluable tool which will ensure your work is safe and with you at all times.