New Backup Drive

New Backup Drive
Originally uploaded by zackojones

Quick question: When was the last time you backed up your photos? Can't remember -- well you'd better back them up. Next question: When was the last time you backed up your back up drive? If you're like me you'd probably answer never to the second question. Well let me save you some grief. Backup your backup drive. Several months ago I backed my backup drive to DVDs. It took me all weekend to do it but I was glad I did. Especially when I came home one day to find my backup drive had died.

I tried called the drive manufacturer. It was long out of warranty so the technician suggested I remove it from the case and try it in my desktop computer. I tried it and the computer would not boot with the drive installed so I removed it.

I next bought an external drive enclosure and installed the drive in it. Windows would see that some sort of drive was there but couldn't do anything with it.

Long story made short: I lost several months of photos because I had moved the only copy of them onto the external hard drive. I have since become a bit obsessed with backing up my photos. My new process is as follows:

Download to C:\Photos folder
Go though the photos and delete the bad ones.
Copy want I want to keep to Z:\Photos which is a separate physical hard drive 1 TB in size.
Import photos into LightRoom
Backup Z:\Photos to External HD #1
Backup External HD #1 to the new backup drive shown in this photo.
I then put External HD #2 into our media rated safe.

I figure with originals on C:\Photos, copy on Z:\Photos and two additional backups odds are I'll never lose another group of images again. External hard drives are cheap. Best Buy has them on sale every week. Buy two and double backup your photos. I can't tell you how sick of a feeling you experience when you realize your photos are gone for ever. Trust me, that's pain and suffering you don't want to experience.