What Happens To My Photos When My Hard Drive Crashes?
Honey!?! Why won’t the computer boot up?
What’s that smell? Is something on fire?
Weren’t all your digital photos on that computer?
Oh, no!
Don’t be a loser … like me. I am talking about loss, data loss. In terms of digital photography I am talking specifically about the pictures of your friends and famliy that are most likely all stored only in one place: your computer’s hard drive.
Life gets busy and it is easy to just collect data, take pictures and make movies, write documents and put our financial data in our checkbook program. We just collect all that stuff in one place (our PC’s) and just think its always going to be there for us forever, just like a good friend. Well, just when you least expect it your technology can turn on you. I’ve lost important pictures and let me tell you huge gaping hole in my heart that I experienced. I was a looser. My first thought was, do I have my stuff backed up? My response was “no”, then “OH, NO!”
How much are your digital photos worth to you? A hard drive failure could cost between 0 and 00 to recover the data depending on the severity of the hard drive crash, if in fact your data is even recoverable.
Here is a short list of things you can do to protect your valuable photos, videos and other personal data:
Anti-Virus Software
Malicious viruses can erase your hard drive. Use a product that is updated every day automatically with the latest anti-virus definitions.
Service Your PC Regularly
When dust collects in and around your hard drives, they overheat and that will shorten the life of the drive. Your personal computer is a big dust filter. Have it serviced by a professional at least once a year and keep them off of the carpeted floor, away from dust and pet dander.
I recommend getting an air filter and keep it in the room with your PC. Your computer will not ingest as much dust, and as an added benefit, the air you breathe will be fresher at the same time.
Backup Your Photos and Data
Photos and data backup over the Internet is becoming a very popular as a data backup choice. This was formerly a pretty expensive solution for the convenience, but with the lowering cost and expanding capacity of hard drives, many web based services are popping up. Online backup is like buying an insurance policy for your digital photo archives.
Here are the advantages of backing up to the Internet:
You can backup securely over any high speed Internet connection.
Since your data is stored on a server offsite, you are covered from events such as PC theft, fire or hard drive failure. Just think what would happen if there is a flood, earthquake or other natural disaster at the place your backups are stored.
Mozy.com is the online backup system that I use. Recommended by PC World Magazine, it works equally well on PC and Mac. You can back up to 2 Gigabytes for free and you can backup unlimited data from your home computer for only .95 per month (even less with an annual subscription). They have a pro version as well for your office computer.
Many online backup companies offer a low cost data backup only to charge you on the back side to restore your backup data. Not so with Mozy. There are no additional fees! When I asked their tech support to confirm, they told me “We don’t hold your data for ransom.”
Don’t be a loser. Take your digital photo library seriously, save early and save often, and make data backup a critical part of your digital photography processes. One day (maybe even tomorrow) you will be glad you did, or sorry you didn’t.
You might even encourage your friends to back up their data (send them a link to this article!) If they experience a data loss event, you very well may become one of their biggest heroes of all time.
Sign up for a free digital photography tip of the week at www.photonack.com. If you shoot in camera RAW (you should be), please visit www.rawconverterreview.com for news and reviews about popular RAW converter programs.
Related Posts
