How Not To Lose Digital Photos
Do you have a plan to protect your digital photos and videos?
Where are your photos and videos stored and are they useable?
Memories captured in photos and videos are irreplaceable. How can you be sure not to lose them? Use the 3-2-1s.
Use the 3-2-1s of digital photos.
What is that?
The concept itself is pretty simple.
· Have your photos and videos backed up in 3 separate locations,
· Stored on 2 different types media,
· With at least 1 copy off-site, away from the others.
This is not something I invented; it has been around for years. (A huge proponent and photography industry expert worth exploring is Peter Krogh who wrote the quintessential manual on digital asset management, called The DAM book.)
In short, if you have 3 separate copies and experience a catastrophic failure – a fried hard drive, a natural disaster, an online service that unexpectedly deletes your content (looking at you, Shutterfly) – then you don’t lose those memories. The 3-2-1s of digital photos can save a lot of heartache.
And how do you actually do this? Do it in two steps.
First step in the 3-2-1s
Decide on what type of media you want to use.
Older media types should not be options. VHS tapes, cassette tapes, film reels, DVDs, and floppy drives are obsolete and don't count. They're degrading as we speak. Upgrade your storage to modern technology.
Also, to be clear, the idea is to make identical, separate copies so that you can retrieve your files when a device fails. Because they will. Remember, the typical lifespan of an external hard drive is 5 years. I went in to some detail on this here.
Here are some examples setups:
1. Apple Photos backed up to iCloud
2. FOREVER (private, permanent, secure in one-time payment, forever)
3. External hard drive
1. Apple Photos backed up to iCloud
2. External hard drive
3. External hard drive
1. OneDrive
2. Amazon Photos
3. External hard drive
Call me to discuss options. They all have pluses and minuses.
Second step in the 3-2-1s
Follow through on your plan. This may be the hardest part. Just do it!
Make sure to account for maintenance. Once you make copies, set a schedule to review and update your copies with new photo additions as time continues. For some platforms this is automatic; for others, it is not.
Call me if you need help.
Understand the 3-2-1s fine print
Please understand what is meant by “backup”. Backing up files means copying and archiving them to be used to restore the original if ever needed.
This is very different from syncing files. I talked about that here. Don’t “backup” files to a cloud drive and choose syncing as your sole measure.
Because syncing means creating two identical copies that update back and forth. Update drive A, drive B automatically updates. If you delete a file on drive A, it disappears from drive B.
This is the single most devastating thing I have experienced yet with photo management. A client discovered that what they thought was a backup was really a sync, and their changes wiped out the only other copy. This is not the right choice for a family photo collection.
Instead, make a copy, a literal second and third copy. For example, select all files in a directory and copy them to another drive. There should be no link between them. If you change something in drive A it will not be reflected in drive B.
There are many available options for you to backup your photo collection. If you need advice on deciding how to proceed, I can help.
When you're ready to tackle your tough organization project, I am here to help you learn how.
Let's RETHINK organization together.
For more information, visit the RETHINK website today.
Mandy Thomas is a professional organizer fulfilling her lifelong passion for creating order out of chaos. She finds joy in helping people tackle their most overwhelming spaces and collections to create the optimal living space and enjoy their homes.
RETHINK organization is on a mission to help you develop long-term patterns of organization that you can maintain and feel good about long after our work together is done.
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