5 Critical Steps to Save Your Pictures Forever

Step 1: Make Multiple Backups

It goes without saying that you need backups, but have you ever created multiple backups? This is an important consideration, because all media – cds, dvds, and external hard drives, will eventually fail. The question will be ‘Have you protected yourself when that failure happens?’.

For every portrait or wedding session I shoot, I immediately make 3 copies – 1 dvd copy for the house and 2 other copies (dvd and hard drive) for offsite storage (see below.)

Make sure to use quality media. Don’t skimp and buy the “100 CDS FOR $10” deal at your local store. You can find plenty of reviews online about the best discs out there. I’ve heard a lot of good things about discs from Taiyo Yuden, so that’s the current brand I go for online. I have also been using some LaCie hard drives for offsite storage and have had no issues.

Don’t write on the disc with a Sharpie or any other pen. It’s best to write on the sleeve that you will store the disc in.

Step 2: Verify (no, really)

After making your copies, check to see that a couple of images on each media were copied correctly. I’ve had a couple of times where the disc failed and I wouldn’t have known about it had I not checked the images.

Step 3: Store Off-site

Take at least one of your copies and store them off-site at a friend or relative’s house, or (in my case) a climate controlled storage unit. Your house will probably never burn down, but if it does, photographs will be at the top of your list to salvage!

Also, for your off-site storage, consider both disc copies and hard drive copies. For example, I have every shoot stored on disc offsite, and I also have a hard drive for each year off-site as well. My first attempt to find image will be the hard drive for that year, and then I will look for the actual disc if I need to.

Step 4: Store Online

In addition to your physical backups, consider copying images to online storage websites like Box.Net, XDrive.com, FlipDrive.com, AllMyData.com and iDisk (for Mac users). Notice that I didn’t mention sites like Flickr or SmugMug. While they may work great for this type of use, I am focusing on companies who only offer backup solutions, not photo-sharing/print solutions.

Step 5: Re-Backup

As I mentioned in Step 1, every type of media will fail eventually. So periodically (I’d suggest every couple of years) take your dvds and replace them with new copies. Do the same for your external hard drives if you are using them.