Back It Up, Baby!

I was sitting at my computer with Lightroom open, culling through images and applying edits as I went.  Suddenly, everything went black.  Oh no.  Tried to restart the computer, but it wasn't letting me past the boot screen.  Of course, I called my older brother, who is a computer guru and my first call whenever I run into something I can't get around.  He says the LAST thing I want to hear:  "Sounds like your hard drive died."  Matter-of-factly, just like that.  My first feeling was that sick one you get in the pit of your stomach, but then, I was washed with a sense of relief when I remembered all of the backups that I have in place.  

My brother was right, the hard drive on my computer was dead.  I simply bought a new one, had it installed, and am slowly, but surely building my machine up again.  I am proud of how my computer is set up.  It has 3 internal drives.  When I bought this laptop 4 years ago, I immediately replaced the C: drive with a solid state drive (SSD).  There are no moving parts, and in theory, they should last longer than your typical hard drive (HDD).  The C: drive is where I run all of my programs, so a beefy SSD was the right move.  The D: drive is where I keep all of my documents (get it?  "D" for documents?  I'm so clever... ;)).  Finally, E: drive is reserved for image files.  

Even though an SSD is tougher and more expensive, it was the first drive to fail because the programs I use, like Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, are beasts that read and write a LOT of data.  And I use those programs daily.  The other drives are just holding data.  Not so much wear and tear.  So, when C: up and died on me, I did not lose any critical files.  I did lose all of my programs.  Here is where I remind you to keep copies of all of your license keys for software in an easily accessible place.  I was missing one or two and had to repurchase the software.  That is not fun!  

But, I haven't even talked about my backups yet.  As my brother would say: "It's not a matter of IF your hard drive is going to fail, it's a matter of WHEN."  I'm in the business of photography.  If I don't have every single image backed up, I risk losing priceless, irreplaceable memories.  So, I have a couple of systems in place.

First, a cloud backup service.  When I first loaded everything onto the cloud, it took days, if not weeks to get everything up there.  But, now, it just trickles up in the background.  And, this service was a God-send when I needed to rebuild the C: drive.  I basically just had to click a button and tell it to replace C: with my C: backup, and then wait.  It took awhile, but I didn't have to sit there and copy files, it did it for me, and I was able to walk away and do other things.  

Secondly, I know the cloud doesn't work instantly, so, I am in no rush to wipe my memory cards after I have copied them onto my computer.  I have several cards, so that I can use a fresh one for my next session and leave the last session's images alone until I am certain they are in at least two other places:  my hard drive and the cloud.  

Finally, I invested in a Network Attached Storage (NAS) system.  Everything gets backed up to the NAS.  It is designed to deal with hard disk failure without losing data.  The one I bought is a beast, and is expandable, so I will hopefully never run out of space!  

I am glad that I was reminded how important good systems are.  I had become a little complacent thinking that it would never happen to me.  Hopefully, reading about my experience is all the shake-up that you need to remember to BACK IT UP, BABY!

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