Backup Strategies
When it comes to your photo collection, do you have backups upon backups? Does it bring you peace or stress?
If the fear of losing your photos drives you to create backups of backups and subscribe to every online service, it might be causing more stress than peace.
The real question is: Where is the master copy?
By following the Photo Managers' strategy of 3-2-1 (for example, having one master collection, copying it onto one external hard drive, and loading it into one cloud service), you'll be golden.
I bring this up because the other day, as I was cleaning up my iPhone and removing unused apps, I realized I had OneDrive on my phone. To my surprise, when I opened OneDrive, all my iPhone photos were there and loading. I didn't want that!
Just like when I installed Google Photos on my phone, I didn't want Google to pull all my iPhone photos into its platform. I definitely do NOT want OneDrive to do the same. For me, a backup is supposed to be very intentional – not automatically taking all the content from one place and replicating it elsewhere. It gets confusing when these apps start pulling your photo library and just replicating it.
Why would I need four copies of my iPhone photos?
And if I delete it on my iPhone, will it clean up in the other apps?
Vice versa, if I delete it in the app, will it clean up on my iPhone?
Otherwise, I'm left dealing with three messes. No thank you!
Instead, I turn OFF those automatic pulls from my iPhone into these apps that get installed (better yet, I delete them off my phones – they serve a great purpose, but it needs to be intentional. More on that in another post). An effective backup solution varies from person to person based on their photo-taking habits, operating systems, and tech-savviness. Whether you clean up your photo collection before creating a backup, only save your favorites, or combine them with others in your family, the general rule of thumb is this:
The Basis of the 3-2-1 Backup Strategy
1. Create a Master Collection: Know exactly where it is, whether it's on your computer's hard drive or an external drive. Having it in something tangible is important.
2. Create two (and only two) backups of that Master Collection: giving you a total of three copies of that collection. The other two can be stored on the cloud, on another drive, on another computer, or even printed. Label those copies as COPIES so that you know they are not the master.
3. Keep one of those backups off-site: Yes, the cloud is considered off-site. But if you have both on an external device, then keep one at a friend's house or with a relative.
This may all seem a bit redundant, but it's effective. The saying we have among photo managers is not a matter of IF a drive or computer will fail, but a matter of WHEN.
If you'd like to chat about the backup strategy outlined above or any other topic related to photos, please reach out. I'd love to chat.
Happy backing up, and here’s to preserving your favorite moments!
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