A post by Scott Kelby on Photoshop Insider about his photo and computer back-up strategy made me decide to post one too. I get asked this fairly often and I’ve seen several seminars on the topic. I will mainly address photos but will also mention audio and video too.
To get started on a plan to back up your data (images/audio/video) you have to be committed to doing it and willing to devote some time to it. There are lots of ways you can do this but mine is developed from a long background in filing things so I can find them later and that includes email. With this plan I have multiple copies of all my data and web access to it as well.
I’m going to start with pictures since that’s probably of the most interest. I shoot onto either CF or SD cards depending on the camera I’m using. Since I usually have frequent access to my computer, I back up my pictures every chance I get using Adobe Lightroom. I custom name all the pictures from an event, add keyword metadata and load them into client or event folders. Then I try each day to copy those folders and files onto a FireLite SmartDisk (pictured). I’ll also keep the pictures on the memory cards until I get back to the office. This way I’ve usually got 3 copies of each picture with me. I shoot onto 2 GB cards and like Scott, I try not to fill them all the way before starting on another.
During an event I’m also editing photos to use in posts. These I keep in a separate folder along with the raw pictures on my hard drive and then on the Smartdisk. I also upload a high percentage of the photos into my Flickr account where they’re publicly available right away. This allows client to look at them and use them even before I send them a disk with all the raw photos after the event.
When I get back to the office, one of my first priorities is to transfer all my pictures onto our office server. We’re using an HP MediaSmart Server. It’s simple and expandable. I’ve got 1.5TB of available storage and have it set up to duplicate my data folders. This means that all my photos are backed up onto 2 different hard drives on the server. Periodically, I will back up the data files onto another external hard drive (Maxtor) which I keep in another location. Sound paranoid? I am.
Since we produce so much audio and video I’ll just say that I handle archiving these files the same way. I normally will keep an unedited version of each audio and video file and save the edited versions with file names related to the event and date. This way I can easily access either in the future when the need arises. While on location I transfer everything to my Mac and the Smartdisk before archiving at the office afterward.
Once I’ve got all my data from an event archived onto my server then I will erase the memory cards and delete the files from my Mac.