The Best Backup Software

Time to Don the Belt and Braces!

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By discussing the best backup software, we're going to finish by learning how to archive all that hard work and time you've spent creating your digital masterpieces.

After all, if you earn money from them, your photographs
are your assets.

If they disappear through hardware failure or theft, they can no longer earn money for you.

OK, maybe they can if they are in a photo library for example, but hopefully you take my point?

No more portfolio printing and no submitting to another library. How tedious would it be to try and recapture those lost photographs that were once so unique? Very tedious!

You see, to me it is utter madness to toil away for weeks, months or even years and to have everything sitting on just one hard drive.

I learnt my lesson about a decade ago. Everything was on one drive:

It failed.

I lost all my data.

Simple as.

Fortunately it was in the days of shooting film, so I could re-scan my work. However, it took weeks to get back to where I needed to be.

Where is that hard drive now?

I had it framed and hung in my studio (pictured above) as a permanent reminder to:

Backup, backup, backup!

Time and again I work with people who arrive with their laptop. I expect that they might have another computer back in their office.

But, no! Everything they have ever made is so often sitting on that one computer.

You only have to ask yourself these simple questions to gauge your personal feelings on the consequences:

• What if this computer or hard drive dies on me right now?
• What if it is stolen or becomes damaged by flood or fire?

I guess these scenarios would be pretty inconvenient, right?

Well, before we even get into discussing the best backup software, there is one simple thing you can do right away:

Never buy just one hard drive, buy a second one at the same time to backup the first!

To put things in perspective, my main studio workstation automatically backups up the hard drives twice a day - once at lunchtime and once in the evening when I've (usually!) left for the day.

I then make a backup system of my main workstation once a week.

My clients take delivery of their images on disc or via the web, so I view this as an off-site backup too.

The aim is to always have the ability to be up and running within an hour after any kind of hardware failure.

Losing data is D-U-L-L...!

You need to make the event as painless as possible because, by virtue of the fact that you are using a computer, it will happen to you at some point!

And my laptop?

That tends to travel with me everywhere so is even more at risk, loss and theft being much higher on the agenda.

This backs up every hour in the studio using Apple's Time Machine and Time Capsule—a brilliant system addressing most of the issues perfectly but it isn't altogether the best backup software.

Even that's not enough for me, so I also make a bootable clone of it once a week.

Sounds like a lot of effort?

No!

You soon get in the habit and so much of it can be automated.

Ultimately, it's all very little effort compared to the horror of losing files.

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So, now I've set the scene...

...I will shortly be publishing pages detailing the best backup software to implement the systems described above.

I will primarily be showing you how to create an Automatic Backup between two hard drives as well as how to make a

Bootable Backup System.

Before this, however, I would thoroughly recommend streamlining your computer's hard drives with some good 'house-keeping'.

In looking for strategies, take a look at my article which describes
how to free up disk space .

Do come back soon to check for new articles or why not make your own contribution using the new Facebook comments feature below...?

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