When I was younger and living with my mom I did not have a lot of space to spare in my room. Every single spot was well thought out for best usage. Man, I remember how I had to hang two bicycles above my bed ; one for road biking and one for dirt … glorious days.

 

Each year I thought to myself that this is it, this year I am moving out! But life being as it was had me staying for more time than expected. At around the third year, I came to realize that I needed to create a more efficient way for using my available space and rethink what items I am going to collect. So I created this rule: “Anything that has not been used for more than one year must go!” – no mercy and no sentiments. By the time i had finally moved out i had practiced the “1Y Rule” for more than 5 years in a limited space environment.

 

Guess what? I adopted this rule for life! Not only for space, but for almost every single thing that I could put my hands on. The results were immense. I’ve set myself free from materialism, I was forced to review almost every aspect in life on a yearly basis. I was privileged to hand out stuff to various people, saved money, saved space and generally became more efficient.

 

Early in the computing days physical space was not cheap and in today’s world, even if it’s cheaper, efficiency in that area can save a lot of money for individuals and businesses alike.
Applying the “1Y Rule” can really save you some $$$. Surely you are not limited to 1 year and can create your own rules for cleanup.

 

When talking about hosting and backups there are several things to consider:

 

  1. Hosting disk space
  2. Backup data transfer
  3. Backup space

 

Every reasonable hosting company will monetize disk space usage. That’s fair and acceptable. Yet in order to excel in today’s market we need to offer “more” … more of everything. So offering large or unlimited disk space can work for your good, as long as you are also able to provide maintenance and help your clients pinpoint what’s “eating” their space.

 

Even though backup transfers, and it doesn’t really matter to which destination, are handled in the most efficient way via incremental backups, it doesn’t mean that it cannot be faster. Keeping the data that you really need can have an effect on server backup speed and even more importantly on restores.

 

Weather you use ssh and local disks, Amazon, Google, Dropbox, Backblaze or any other cloud destination, less backup space = less spent money which can be leveraged for other usage.

 

Now set up a time to cleanup your old and unused junk. If you can, automate it (carefully). Don’t forget that with JetBackup you can use multiple destinations to keep yourself extra protected and backed up.