Can somebody give me advice on what the best ways to back-up game documents (designs, character concepts, etc.) and art assets (3D models, textures, sounds, music) are? I do already use a software versioning system for my code, but what about documents and art assets?

I could hypothetically store some of those in the software versioning system too, but that's not its primary purpose. As far as I know, those are primarily meant for code. Is there such a thing as art assets repository?

Perhaps I could use Google drive or Google docs, or DropBox, in addition to an external hard-drive? Somebody I talked to about this suggested backing-up all files on an external hard drive and putting it in a bank safe deposit box. That seems kind of extreme though.

How do other developers on here accomplish this?

Thanks in advance.

If you use windows, why not try OneDrive?

I could hypothetically store some of those in the software versioning system too, but that's not its primary purpose. As far as I know, those are primarily meant for code. Is there such a thing as art assets repository?

Most game developers store everything in a version control repository (usually the same one for code and data, but not always). Some of these tools are quite suitable for this purpose while others are quite bad at dealing with large binary files. If you're using one of the ones not well suited to such files and don't want to switch, DropBox or the like work as a half measure.

Somebody I talked to about this suggested backing-up all files on an external hard drive and putting it in a bank safe deposit box. That seems kind of extreme though.

That's a terrible suggestion. Hard-drives have a limited shelf-life even when unplugged and unused and can fail for all sorts of random reasons far sooner than they normally should. A properly-managed external service (which means a large well-funded IT team deals with backups the proper way) is much safer. GitHub, BitBucket, CodePlex, etc.

GitHub, BitBucket, CodePlex, etc.

Though as far as free options goes, BitBucket kindly informs you if your repository gets over 1GB, but freezes that repository if it hits 2GB (this is the free version of BitBucket).

As far as free online storage goes - since everyone is competing, you can get 10GB (I think?) OneDrive space for free. And they bundle more with Microsoft Office 365 if you happen to be getting that anytime soon. I haven't used OneDrive myself so I don't know how good it is.

I do use DropBox, and after jumping through multiple hoops, I have 7.7 GB for free.

Howsoever! DropBox (and some of the others) particularly warn you that they aren't intended for backup purposes, and they give no promises about data not getting corrupted (to cover their own butts incase of disaster). Other services actually designed for data backups (like Mozy, CrashPlan, and etc...) make more strongly-worded guaranties (Not that a guaranty helps anything if they ever do lose your files).

just to add to the free alternatives, copy.com has 15G free. I've been using it until I can be bothered to set up a github account. But, it's not a bad alternative, you can sync to your system, secure, multiplatform, etc, etc.

I've started swinging toward the idea of keeping code and assets in the same repository. Where I work that isn't done (they're in separate repos, with separate update steps) and sync problems tend to happen way too often. Now, documents on the other hand, I strongly feel need to go into revision control, probably in the same repo as code. Even design docs frequently relate to code, and they're intrinsically versioned, diffable, code-like data. It's probably a good idea to keep your other assets versioned too though (at least in some form), because they can and do change, and tracking those changes is what version control is all about.

Also, I'm a wee bit confused. Shouldn't this go into "Build Systems and Source Control" rather than "Production and Management"?

Shouldn't this go into "Build Systems and Source Control" rather than "Production and Management"?

Perhaps. Producers and managers often ask this type of question here in Production/Management, so I moved it here from wherever it was originally. If someone wants to move it to Build Systems/Source Control, I think a redirect ought to be left here.

This is one reason why I don't like the fact that things are getting pushed to intangible storage, or cloud services.

Yes, servers can go down too.

I have CDs and DVDs years old that still have data on them (they don't fail like hard-drives or go down like servers, or charge you monthly fees).

You could back it up to Blu-ray, and seal it with 10 inch cement in a glass case.

Seriously though this is something I need to consider myself actually. I just made a post about game design documents earlier, but I guess I should consider how I will back the info up. I might do the blu-ray thing.

Thanks for all the replies. So from reading all those, I am getting the feeling the best way to back-up documents and art assets is a repository. The question though is, which one? I use SVN for my code, is that one well suited for documents and art assets or is there a better (more reliable and more secure) one?

Also, free services are good, of course, but I don't mind paying a little bit of money to get better service. As for those online storage services, such as Google Drive, DropBox, GitHub, BitBucket, etc., are they as secure as a repository?