Do you have a digital photo back-up plan?
Monday, July 27th, 2009Everything is going along fine with your computer until one day… your hard drive starts making funny noises … or the monitor starts to flicker and then dies altogether due to a bad motherboard. Both of these scenarios have happened to me personally and at work. If it hasn’t happened to you, I bet you’ve heard the horror stories. A dead computer means lost data and lost memories.
Do you have a back-up plan? And are you sticking to it regularly? I admit I don’t have all the answers and I can probably do a much better job both at work and at home. But it all comes down to making sure your precious memories are saved in at least 2 places and probably on different types of media.
When my internal hard drive failed, I didn’t have it all backed up onto CDs or DVDs. The research I did at that point pretty much said that “hard drives are designed to fail.” That doesn’t sound very promising. But the truth of the matter is that with moving parts, they won’t last forever. Do yourself a favor and get in the habit of saving your digital photos periodically onto CD or DVD. Do it monthly if you take a lot of pictures – makes it easier to remember.
Some people like the online back-up solutions. I’ve never looked into these services but there’s a monthly or yearly charge. It’s more likely to happen automatically, however, so it may be worth investigating. The other nice thing about this kind of back-up is that you’d be able to access your data elsewhere. So if something catastrophic happened to your house or apartment, you’ll be able to retrieve your data later if you have to replace your computer.
I know some people like to save a second copy of their data at an offsite storage facility like a safety deposit box. I’m paranoid about stuff but not that paranoid. Still, it’s not a bad idea. Maybe a relative wouldn’t mind putting a box of CDs in their closet for you.
The point here is to save your images in a few different places: internal hard drive, external hard drive, CD/DVD, online, and even as prints. We can always scan a print and make copies that way, although it is more expensive than printing directly from a CD or DVD.
Be sure to label your CDs/DVDs with a Sharpie-type pen and never use a pencil or ball point pen to write on your media. You will damage the information on the CD and render it useless. You’ll also want to keep the bottom scratch-free so make sure to keep it in a hard case.
Happy shooting and save your photos!