Recently we went through the process of buying a new car, not my favorite thing to do! However, having an organizing plan for those important pieces of information, having them secure and easily accessible helped make part of the process a little easier.
It’s pretty much the same with photo organizing…..
I bet we all either have a photo loss story or know someone who has lost their precious photos. It doesn’t matter digital or print, they are all suspectable to loss. I have heard many interesting stories; anywhere from computer death, to stolen cameras, to faulty film that couldn’t be developed to just pushing the wrong button and watching helplessly as photos disappear FOREVER.
I went YEARS, yes years knowing I needed a backup system but never got around to it. It seemed overwhelming and was much easier to procrastinate. I knew that the only copy of my digital pictures was on my computer. There was an underlying level of stress knowing that if my computer died all my pictures would go along with it. Pictures of the birth of my children, first days of school, birthdays, weddings, and just fun family times. These were precious to me and though life would go on if they went missing I wanted to do something so I did not have to worry about the ‘what if…’ because face it, computers crash, they do not live forever, natural disasters and theft happen, no one is immune.
Thankfully, I am now safely backed up with the standard 3-2-1 system and that is what I encourage you to work towards. Here’s the breakdown:
Now you may feel 3 copies of all your photos is a little excessive however, once all your photos are organized it does not take much effort to copy them to an external hard drive or upload them to a cloud service. This just gives you an extra level of protection. Just a few months ago Western Digital My Book storage devices were erased remotely. The company was telling customers to unplug their device to protect the hacker from going in and deleting information. You just never know, 3 copies gives you just that extra level of protection.
My personal system.
- I start with an external hard drive. This is the main way I interact with my photos.
- Amazon Photos is my next copy. We already pay for Prime so this is no added cost for photo storage, and this is linked to my phone so my phone pictures are protected. They also have a great automatic search feature which means no more keywording individual pictures. We do pay for video storage because we exceed the storage limit for the Prime benefit.
- DropBox is our third copy. I recently added Dropbox for my business and so it was easy to just upload my photo collection for another storage source. If we were not using DropBox I would have a second EHD stored at a family member’s house.
There are multiple scenarios that are possible. As a photo organizer, I can help you consider all the possibilities to find the process that works best for you. The goal, in the end, is to have a secure photo collection that is easy to access and manage. Having your photos safely backedup gives you the freedom to share and create with your photos, releaving you of the stress of worrying about what if…..
If you are ready to get your photos organized and backedup safely I offer full organizing services, click here to get started. If you have questions or want more information contact me here.
