I hear more stories than I would like to of family after family losing ALL of the pictures they have taken in the last 2 or 3 years. It breaks my heart since there is no reason for this. Simply dumping your pictures onto your hard drive from the memory card on your digital camera is just not enough. Hard drives crash – it’s just a matter of when. The biggest problem is that the public in general has not been informed. So I am here to help you find solutions and avoid heart ache.
Here are some simple steps.
1. Whenever you purchase a new memory card for your digital camera – make sure it works before taking any memorable once-in-a-lifetime photos to find that it was not properly formatted!
2. Download your photos from your memory card or digital camera onto your computer.
3. Before you erase the memory card, make sure the pictures are there!
4. Back up! Back up! Back up!
Where do you back up your photos and how often? There are some great programs* that can walk you through this step by step and even remind you that it’s time to perform a back up. But here is a short and sweet way to do it now.
First thing is how often. This is a personal choice. As a general rule, every 100-200 photos you should do a back up of just those images. If you are anything like my family, that’s just ONE event! Most importantly, if those photos you just took are something priceless that cannot be re-created and especially if no one else has copies of them, such as a once in a lifetime trip, your child’s first steps, or graduation day then make back ups right away. Every 500 or so images or every 2-3 months, depending on how many pictures you have taken you should do a back up of ALL your images. You should also perform a back up after doing any extensive editing of your pictures.
You can back up to CDs and DVDs – but as your digital photography enthusiasm grows, so will your JPEG collection. Also, you need to perform complete backups of all images occasionally since the life of a CD can be from 2-99 years and you have no way of knowing which one you will get. You can lessen this chance by purchasing archival quality DVDs.
The ideal way to back up is by using an external hard drive. These have become very cost effective and can hold a lot of images. Again, purchasing a better quality is preferred. Right now, you can get a 1 Terabyte from NewEgg for $84.99 after rebate and FREE shipping. Fantom Drives G-Force GF1000EU 1TB External Hard Drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822204069 for details. The best deals can usually be found at newegg.com and buy.com – my husband cringes whenever anyone says they purchased their computer items at place like WalMart or Best Buy so shop around online for a good deal. I have no affiliation to these sites, I have simply had excellent personal experience and they have a great return policy.
So, what are you waiting for? Go back up your digital photos now!
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