How to protect yourself from being blocked by Google, Dropbox, iCloud and OneDrive

If you are sensitive As for tech disasters, you might want to look away now: A recent Reddit thread tells the story of an unfortunate user who found 30 years of photos and works locked and inaccessible in Microsoft OneDrive.

The individual used his cloud storage account to combine files from different hard drives, which had to be disposed of due to the move. The plan was to move files back from OneDrive to the new hard drives, but before the user could do that, their account was locked by Microsoft — without any reason given.

It’s still unclear why the account was locked or why Microsoft has so far ignored user calls to regain access, but it’s a warning to the rest of us — and a reminder to put in place some basic protections and precautions.

Keep multiple backups

It has been a universally acknowledged fact that data is not properly backed up until it is backed up twice, in two separate locations. You can copy your important files to an external hard drive, but if they’re in the same room as your laptop, theft, fire, or flood could wipe out both copies at the same time.

Today, having two backups of everything, three in total, may seem like overkill, as cloud storage services rarely fail. We’ve all gotten used to the idea that the data we’ve registered with Microsoft, Google, Apple or other providers will always be available, so we don’t have to worry about it.

Applications often prompt you to delete local copies of your files.

Photography: David Nield