Carrie Vines

In this digital age, with all our pictures, documents, LIFE, so it seems, on our computers, it is so important to back up your computer.  And when you’re done, back it up again!  And dare I say, one more time!!  But why so much?! Seriously?  Do I really need to back up in triplicate?

YES!!

I strongly suggest, especially with pictures and videos and other important documents, that you back up to an external hard drive, burn to a DVD, and finally, most definitely try to back up to an off site source, meaning somewhere not in your home. There are several companies, such as Mozy, that offer this service, and yes, it does cost money.  But spend a little time shopping around and you can find some good deals out there. Its like a safe deposit box, which many of us already have, only digital.  And if, God forbid, you lost your home to a fire, flood, or earthquake, you could still recover your data if you used an off-site service.

I bring this to your attention because I just had a HUGE hard drive failure yesterday.  This hard drive was my life, my work, my family memories, EVERYTHING!!  I spend quite a bit of time organizing my client folders, personal folders and losing this would have been catastrophic.  But I also have an amazing husband, who is an IT Genius, and he saved everything.  I also have an off-site storage for my client photos with my new client proof gallery, which I will be sharing with you all in the next post.  And even though I have meticulous organization in the digital world,  I also now keep an actual physical file with all the same info.. just in case.  So you can be assured, that when hard drives fail, and they do, your pictures will be safe and sound.

Peace of mind shouldn’t be taken for granted.  Go back up your computer today!

One more point to add, this type of recovery, if I had to pay someone, could be very expensive.  I read recently of one photographer’s unfortunate situation where she lost all of her client photos and was told it would cost her $2000 to recover them.  Ouch!