Back up those files!

Eric at Hope Slide a few years ago.

Computers.  Love them, hate them, but you gotta use them.  So, do yourself a favour and back your stuff up.

As a photographer, I have hundreds of thousands of pictures.  Most of them have no or little value, but there are a few hundred that are important to me.  And every year the list grows longer.

Then there are the files that are not graphic in nature.  These include the photo books I have written and much of the correspondence I have had with others.  Where paper is bulky and difficult to keep organized, computer files are tiny, easily organized and sorted, and best of all, easily copied.  So it makes sense to keep important stuff stored digitally, and in a place where it is not likely to be lost, stolen, or damaged. 

This brings me to digital backups.  There are numerous ways to back stuff up, now more than ever, and you should consider taking some time to do it.  You can do it for free or with little expense.  You may well be grateful that you did.

Here are a couple of simple things you can do.

1.  Buy an external hard drive.  In fact, buy two.  The size depends on what your particular needs are, but a terabyte is often enough for the average homeowner.  Back up everything on one drive, and then duplicate the first drive onto the second.  Keep one at home and the other off-site.  Use a friend's place, work, neighbour's, or even a safe-deposit box.

2.  Remember to include all of the important files on your cell phones too.  Not just yours, but your entire family's.  There are many ways that you can port over your images onto the computer that you are backing up.  That way, if a phone is lost, stolen, or destroyed, you haven't lost all those images that were taken.

3.  Save stuff to "the cloud."  You can get free storage when you belong to certain groups or you can buy cloud storage for this very purpose.  The advantage of cloud storage is that you can access it from anywhere.  At work and need a file from home?  Just open it from the cloud.  Of course, you have to save it there in the first place.

4.  There is portable media you can save things on; but this tends to be temporary at best.  Gone are the CD's and DVD's of yesterday's era, the current trend is to use USB devices that can hold vast volumes of data, and you can keep it all in a pocket.  The data is safe from magnets, temperature changes, water, and even modest physical abuse.  The downside is that it will likely get misplaced unless you have a place to keep it safe, and the amount of data it holds is somewhat limited.

I back my stuff up once a year.  I like to keep it in four different places.  There is the original data which is accessible on my main computer.  I have a second backup on the same computer but on a different physical drive in case the main drive crashes.  I have another copy on an independent external hard drive and a fourth one off-site.  This covers all contingencies.  I don't use cloud storage a lot, it's just a personal preference.

With the New Year coming, it is a good idea to get this done.  But don't make is a resolution, it's the best way to forget about it.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com