18 December 2010. While I type this, I'm waiting for roughly 2GB of family photos to sync with Dropbox. That's one year of family photos, starting from what is locally called Snomagedon. So, I thought now would be a great time to discuss the use of off-site storage and novel writing.

If you've worked with one for a while, you know computers can be unpredictable and unreliable at times. Viruses, software failures and hardware failures all introduce the risk that what is on the computer can be lost. Through the years, we have had various ways of attacking the problem. This typically manifests itself in physical backups. Those 5 1/4" , 3.5" floppies, not to mention USB sticks, SSD memory and now hard drives.

The advantage of the physical storage method is you are given the ability to share the data between computers. That is, provided the different computers share the ability to connect. USB sticks and external hard drives are the two that are most likely to connect due to the common connections. You also can use this just to provide a routine backup, if you only have one computer.

The disadvantages of the physical storage method are the size, the likelihood of theft and the possibility that the storage media would fail. If you've relied on one storage device, you can still lose years of data. For a novel writer, the risk of losing all one's data is daunting.

At roughly the same time, there have been virtual methods. These involved synchronizing the data via a common repository on a different computer via the network. In the old days that was SCCS, RCS or even Subversion. These methods required one computer to play host to all the data, and be available all the time.

More modern approaches allow for decentralized storage using such methods as Git and Mercurial. These also require a second computer to be available to synchronize, but there are such services as Github that provide that secondary computer.

Both methods spread the data to multiple computers, reducing the impact of physical media failure. They also provide the hidden advantage of providing the evolutionary development of a work, which can be useful in copyright enforcement and defense. However, they require a fairly high level of technical sophistication to establish and maintain.

Through the years, I've used CVS, Subversion and Git to provide virtual backups and version history. Technical complications are a professional aspect of mine, so surmounting them have not been an issue. But, I'm getting to the point where I'd rather not have to keep proving myself. And, I'd like to find a way that I can share with others.

Enter cloud computing. The service I use now is Dropbox, which uses Amazon's cloud. This gives me the advantage of virtual storage without the added technical complications involved in past efforts. I install a small application on the computers I want to synchronize, and I put the data I want synchronized in a specific folder. Then, anytime the file changes on any of my computers, the change is automatically sent to the cloud. More importantly, as soon as another computer connects to the cloud, it gets those changes.

If a computer fails, then another computer can be brought online. What if you only have one computer, and it fails? Buy another one, install the Dropbox software and it will pull down a fresh copy off the cloud when it connects.

What if your computer is stolen. Dropbox has a web interface that lets you disconnect a computer from your repository, which may not protect files already on the computer, but it will prevent future synchronizations from happening.

What if Dropbox the company fails? Well, whatever you have synchronized at that point is where you are. The data physically resides on each computer, and changes are pushed to the cloud. Lose the cloud, you'll still have your files.

What if the computer on the cloud fails? Cloud computing involves hundreds of computers working together. When one fails, then its replaced by Amazon. The data is moved around to all the computers that are operational. Nothing is lost. Remember, earlier this week a major hacker organization failed to bring down Amazon's cloud. So, the data is fairly safe.

Dropbox is a free service with 2 GB storage, though you can pay about $100/year for 50 GB storage. I paid a little extra to keep all version history at my disposal. So, there's no risk to try. You can keep your current backup method, and use Dropbox at the same time. You can even persuade your friends to join and get credit. I'm not asking for that here because I'm paying for much more than you get via invitations.