Tech Tuesday - What's Your Backup Strategy: Part 1

We live in a digital world, from the cameras we use to the hard drives we store our photos on.  Unfortunately, digital fails.  We've all heard it before: it's not if your hard drive is going to fail, but when.  What's your backup strategy?

First, let's discuss why you need a backup strategy.  We already know that hardware fails.  What happens if lightning zaps your computer?  How about fire or flood?  Theft?  Virus?  User error?  There are so many different ways you can lose your data it's not even funny.  Then there's the scenario where you don't lose your data, but you can't access it either?  What happens if the hard drive with your operating system dies?  All of your data is safe, you just can't access it.

So now that you have an idea of why you might want to start thinking about a backup strategy, let's talk about what a backup strategy might include.  A successful backup strategy should include all of these features:

• It constantly backs up your data
• It's easy to use
• It's accessible
• It's redundant.

How about a real-world example?  Let's say you just photographed a wedding.  You import the photos to your computer and they automatically get backed up to an external hard drive.  That was easy.  Now if one hard drive crashes the photos aren't lost.  You spend the next week editing the photos so that they're perfect.  The bride is going to love them!  Oops, your hard drive just crashed.  "No worries!  I have them backed up on this external hard drive!"  Unfortunately, you didn't back up any of your edits, so now you're starting over from scratch.  After another week of editing, you have the photos ready again and all of the edits are backed up to your external hard drive.  Nothing can go wrong now.  Except that your backup is sitting about 2 feet away from your main drive.  You better hope your house doesn't burn down!  Maybe you should move your backup to an offsite location?

I hope that you are at least a little scared by now.  Will your hard drive fail today?  Tomorrow?  Next week?  Probably not.  But it will fail.  You don't know when, which is what makes it extra-scary.

Next week I'll be posting Part 2 of this article, detailing my specific backup strategy.  Until then, I hope you think about your current backup strategy, how well it's working for you and what you want to change.  I am currently re-evaluating my strategy and will be reviewing it from the ground up.  

Keep in mind, I'm a photographer, not an IT guy.  If you don't like my strategy or what I'm saying here, feel free to ignore it or send suggestions my way!  And please... if you're really serious about backing up irreplaceable data, do more research than just reading what I have to say.