THE DISADVANTAGE OF DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY

BEFORE DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY

•Photographs were real physical objects

• Stored and treasured in photo albums and slide boxes for decades

WITH DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY

•Photographs are just information, they are virtual objects

• Stored in our computers’ hard disks

THE DISADVANTAGE OF DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY?

OUR COMPUTERS ARE NOT A SAFE PLACE

TO KEEP OUR PHOTOGRAPHS

THERE ARE ONLY TWO TYPES OF HARD DISK

THE ONES THAT HAVE FAILED

AND THE ONES THAT WILL FAIL

HOW LONG DOES A HARD DISK LAST?

• typically around 5 years

•hard disks younger than 3 months are much more likely to fail

•hard disks older than 3 years are much more likely to fail

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

ONE DAY YOUR HARD DISK WILL BREAK

EVERYTHING ON IT WILL BE LOST

SOLUTIONS

DON’T KEEP ALL OF YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET

MAKE COPIES. MANY COPIES.

A BACKUP IS

A SPARE COPY OF YOUR IMAGES

A BACKUP IS NOT

KEEPING ALL YOUR IMAGES ON AN

EXTERNAL HARD DISK

A BACKUP IS NOT

ARCHIVING YOUR IMAGES TO DVDS

BACKUPS ARE

OUR ONLY PROTECTION FROM

DISASTER

DISASTERS?

•Hard Drive Failure

•Computer Virus

• Theft

•Mistakes

THE 3-2-1 BACKUP RULE

•Keep three separate copies of your photographs

•Copy them to two different types of storage

•Keep one copy offsite away from your computer

THREE COPIES OF YOUR PHOTOGRAPHS

• The first copy is on the computer where you work on your photographs

•A second copy is on an external hard disk or DVD to protect you against the failure of your computer

•A third copy is kept offsite, outside of your house, to protect you against disasters like fire, flooding or burglary

IF ONE COPY FAILS YOU HAVE TWO SPARE COPIES

YOU HAVE TWO CHANCES TO GET YOUR PHOTOS BACK

MAKE ROUTINE COPIES

ROUTINE

•Put in your calendar; for example the first Sunday every month

•Or use a backup programme to schedule the backup

• Important: check your backup copies to see if anything has gone wrong

WHAT DO I DO?

MY BACKUP WORKFLOW

• I keep all of my photographs since 2006 on my computer. - first copy

• Each night my computer copies my whole Lightroom folder (around 450GB) to an external hard drive - second copy

• I run Backblaze which constantly uploads my images to an internet based backup - third copy

ISN’T THIS PARANOIA?

WHEN DISASTER STRIKES

• In March of this year my hard drive failed. That’s my first copy gone.

• Three days later my external backup hard drive failed. That’s my second copy gone.

•My offsite internet backup was okay. So my third copy was fine.

COMPLETE RECOVERY

•Replaced my computer hard drive

•Replaced my backup external hard drive

•Restored my images from my offsite backup and copied them to the external backup hard drive. That’s my first and second copies restored from my third copy.

• I didn’t lose a single image

WHAT DOES THIS COST?

•An external USB hard drive - around £60

•A subscription to Backblaze (or Mozy, Carbonite) - around £4 per month but this requires a broadband connection to make a backup. Your initial backup might take a long time.

WHAT’S THE LEAST YOU CAN DO?

•Buy an external hard drive

•Make a spare copy of all your photographs on that hard drive

•Put a reminder in your calendar for when to make a new copy

SUMMARY

• Storage of digital photographs is fragile. Every hard disk will break eventually.

•Don’t keep your eggs in one basket. Make regular spare copies of your images.

• Ideally follow the 3-2-1 backup rule. 3 copies, 2 different types of storage and 1 copy offsite.

•However, even a single spare copy is far better than none

QUESTIONS?