Time to back up my files again.

My main computer - backing up all my files from summer (based on laptop).

I have been busy this year taking photos.  From our visit in the New Year in Leduc with my son's family until we got back from our camping trip to Alberta, I have shot thousands of photographs.  And that is just what has happened in the last 9 months.  I started shooting digital images around the year 2000, and so I have 25 years of images.  Then there are the slides and photos scanned from before that.

Backups are important.  Hard drives fail.  Sectors get errors.  Stuff breaks.  And then there are the harsher realities of life, accidents and theft.  Floods, hurricanes, tornados, earth quakes, fires - they all take their toll on equipment.  And if your memories and important images and documents are all in one very vulnerable place, you could lose it all.  Like I said, backups are important.

And so, at least once a year, I back up my files.  I have two main computers I use, my laptop that has my travel shots and my main computer (this one) that has everything else.  Every few months I backup my laptop files onto my desktop.  Then, once a year, I back up my desktop so everything is done.

But that's not the end of it.  I back up my backups.  That may seem like overkill, but I think it is necessary.  I keep at least 2 backups, one on site and the other off site.  My daughter in Abbotsford has my backups from previous years.  After I make this backup I will take it to her and return with the previous backup.  Then I will use it to make a second backup that I will keep at home.

The good news is that memory is relatively inexpensive.  You can buy a 4 TB (terabyte) hard drive on Amazon for under $140.  If your computer has a USB-C port or USB-3 port and your hard drive does too, your backup speeds are fast.  It may still take an hour or two (for me, it takes many hours), but it is all done with the simple click of a button.

And yes, there is the cloud.  However, space is limited, sometimes it costs money, and there is the risk that your files there may be hacked or lost.  I much prefer having physical storage and knowing where it is.  Two copies.  One at home, the other not.

Back up your stuff.  It's important.

Eric Svendsen.    www.ericspix.com

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