Secret Please Spread the Word!

"I lost my camera with pictures of my grandchildren since they were born and other valuable pictures".  I can not count the number of times I have read or heard a similar message. Most professional and even hobbyist photographers use some type of back up for their images, but many casual photographers/parents don't even think of the need to back up their images. Last year my cell phone needed a total reset which erased all data including photo's that I had taken.  Had there not been a backup, I would have been very upset with myself even though these were not professional images.  Damaged Cards, stolen phones, even a hacked account can ruin your day with the loss of images.

To be clear, this post is not covering professional back up systems, nor a indepth discussion of RAID. Rather there are SO many options out there to backup accounts, many of which are very inexpensive for the casual user. For example, Portable thumb drives

are available on Amazon for as little as $20 - $30 which have very good customer reviews. Thumb drives are available that can be used directly with call phones for as little as $30.00.  Thumb drives of course can be lost, but they are very portable and are relatively easy to use for just about anyone. 

A step up, but not quite so portable are small external disk drives. Seagate currently is offering a one terabyte hard drive with rescue service for about $50.00.  A one TB hard drive for a casual user will likely last several years if handled with just a little bit of care. Even less expensive the  Mazone is currently offering a 500 gb portable drive on Amazon for about $35.00 which seems to have good reviews.

Of course there are many on line services that are common such as google drive or drop box which will offer cloud storage for very little money. Google allows 15 gigabyes of storage, so if someone is very selective, this could be a short term solution with some phones having built in apps that allow direct up links to the cloud. Cloud services are arguably the safest way to backup photo's, even for professionals. One never has to worry about a hard drive failing, a fire, or any other disaster that could happen with local storage.  Of course, one needs a reliable internet provider for access to these sites.

Loosing treasured pictures that can never be replaced of parents, friends, vacations, pets or anything else that one may value. Professionals are well aware of the need to backup their images to protect their livelihood but the casual person taking baby pictures may not even realize that dropping their cell phone in the bath water will ruin everything!