Growing up as a Gen X-er, or an Elder Millennial (the lines are blurred for us 1980 babies!), most of my physical photos were stored in a box or in photo albums. Those boxes and albums were the first thing you were supposed to grab if the house caught on fire!
Nowadays, most of us have far fewer printed photos. Although I am a huge advocate for printing and displaying your photographs, most of them will be digital and need to be stored digitally. We need to ensure that those digital files are protected so that if something goes wrong, we won't lose those precious photo memories forever.
Why is a digital photo storage plan so important?
The point of an effective digital photo storage plan is to make sure that in the worst-case scenarios, you'll always have a backup copy of your photos. If the hard drive fails, will you lose those photos? If you suffer a house fire, do you have a copy elsewhere? If you are burglarized and your computer or hard drives are stolen, will you be able to recover your photos?
The 3-2-1 backup strategy
There is no perfect strategy for digital photo storage. It is impossible to predict and protect against all possible outcomes, but we can do our best to make sure we have several copies in place and effectively store them.
The rule of thumb for digital photo storage is the 3-2-1 backup strategy. What does this mean?
3 copies total
2 local copies on different devices
1 copy offsite
This 3-2-1 backup strategy is considered a bare minimum. If you have the ability to manage more, great! But it can get cumbersome, so start with what you can manage.
My personal digital photo storage strategy
I prefer to use external hard drives for storage. I have two copies on two separate hard drives. For my third offsite copy, I use cloud storage through Backblaze. Your offsite copy could be another hard drive stored offsite, such as at a friend or family member's home, but I find cloud storage to be much more efficient and manageable. There are many cloud storage services out there, but I have used Backblaze for years, and have been very happy with it.
I keep one hard drive connected to my computer and as I add new photos, those are backed up to the cloud storage. The second hard drive copy needs to be manually updated, and I do that monthly. Suppose you are not confident that you can remember to update your backup hard drive consistently. In that case, another option is to keep both hard drives connected to your computer and set up tasks on a program such as Carbon Copy Cloner to automatically clone the hard drive on a selected schedule.
As I mentioned, no strategy is perfect, but I do my best to ensure the best protection I can for my personal photo files.
Embracing changing technology to help preserve the past
As technology evolves, so should our methods of preserving the past. By implementing a robust digital photo storage plan, you can find peace of mind, knowing that your priceless photo memories are shielded from the uncertainties of the digital age.
Safeguarding your digital photo memories requires a thoughtful approach to photo storage. Once you have an effective strategy and routine in place, you can rest easy that all of your priceless photos are safe behind several layers of security. Embracing the 3-2-1 backup strategy helps to ensure that your cherished moments are protected against unforeseen events and hardware failures, so that you and your loved ones may enjoy your cherished photos for years to come.
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