Sticker on the cable bag of my Maxtor external firewire drive, purchased over the weekend.
I’m currently on my third external firewire drive. The first two are 250GBs, this one is 500GBs. Someone suggested that I get a 1TB (terabyte) drive, but I’m willing to wait — prices will always decrease for storage while capacity increases.
I have several archiving methods which include making a backup of a memory card download direct to DVD even before I cull any dud photos or do any editing. That DVD of full unedited originals gets filed chronologically.
I shoot on average 1,000 photos or more per month, so I burn a backup of about a month’s worth of shooting and editing and file that, too. Additionally, I archive each quarter of a year’s worth of photo libraries (2008 Q1, Q2, etc.) over to an external drive, separate from any other archiving.
I only keep three months (one quarter) of photos on my G4 PowerBook at any one time because it travels quite a bit and it only has an 80GB hard drive. All my email is stored on other servers (.Mac, gmail, the office, etc.), and my documents, calendars, address book, and bookmarks are synched with iDisk to Apple’s servers. I can retrieve them using any browser and can access most things from my iPod Touch.
Basically, if my PowerBook G4 ever fails, the only things I lose are the applications, which are no big deal. The only area I haven’t covered is if my house collapses or explodes because I need to move either the DVDs or an external drive with full backup off-site.
Are you a big archivist? Or are you willing to take a technological gamble? It’s time for a poll!
Friday, 22 August 2008
I back-up everyday to a local external drive, and then monthly I swap external drives with one at another location. Also have multiple DVD backups of pictures and vids.
I’ve had my PC crash twice the past few years, and both times was SAVED because of backing up.
I don’t care about backing up applications themselves, but I do back up installation files since many programs I buy directly from the web. Also, I back up initialization and settings files. Because even if you recover your software and files, it’s a bit unsettling to lose formatting and other setting favorites….
Friday, 22 August 2008
I put my pics on disc and back up my email on Gmail. Bookmarks are on Google too.
Other than that, I have nothing else to back up.
Saturday, 23 August 2008
I’m huge on backing up now. I had a laptop meltdown earlier this year and lost a few client files. The worst feeling EVER. Especially since the technician said he’d never seen a laptop go the way mine did.
Now I’m a religious backer-upper.