Digital Storage

So now you've got your pictures on your computer. What do you do with them now? How do you store them ? How do you protect them from "digital damage"?

Storing your files on a computer is not really the problem. Keeping those files from getting corrupted is really what this is about.

If you keep your images on the hard disk of your computer, you are at risk from having those files damaged by things such as viruses, electricity spikes and hard disk failure. The first two are of course easily preventable, a good anti-virus software and a UPS / Surge protector will do just fine. But what happens if you switch your machine on one day to be greeted with a message along the lines of "Error, system disk not found". The hard disk has died and everything on it is gone forever*.

You need to have a backup of your images. Now this is where it starts to get complicated. There are many different ways you can go about keeping a backup. A fully automated system is probably a little over the top, and if you have one, why are you reading this ?? A manual system is very easy to setup but will require a certain amount of discipline to keep it up to date. Let's look at the options:

CD / DVD

A CD / DVD solution is a very good idea. Copying your files onto a CD or DVD at the end of a shooting session is the simplest form of backup there is. You can even take the CD to the office or a friends house so that even if, heaven forbid, your house burns down, your images are safe.

The drawback to this solution is that it will require some sort of catalog to be able to find an image should you need to do so in the future.

Internal Hard Disk

A second internal hard disk in your machine is a good idea. That way you have a second copy of the files and they are easy to access.

Downside of this is of course that it is still in the PC, powered up and spinning. If something could take out one hard drive, it might also take out a second.

Another take on this is to have a second machine that has a large hard disk inside. This could be switched on only when a backup is required, thus limiting the time it is powered up. It's a bit of a comprimise but one that has some merit.

External Hard Disks

There are a number of manufacturers that now make USB 2.0 / Firewire external hard disks. These simply plug into the USB or Firewire port of your computer and they are almost instantly available to use. This is similar to having a second PC, except that the hard disk is used purely for images / data and doesn't have to have an operating system installed on it.

You can also buy a hard disk enclosure. If you already have a spare hard disk doing nothing, getting hold of an enclosure means that you can place your spare hard disk inside and it instantly becomes an external hard drive ready for storing images on.

All of these are perfectly adequate for most needs. For the ultimate solution, read this excellent explanation of RAID systems from Naturescapes.net.

If you're interested, I shall give you some details of the way we backup our files.

In The Field

When shooting in the field it is sometimes necessary to empty the CF cards. I do this by taking along a Dell laptop. Placing the CF card in the PC Card reader, I can copy the files fairly quickly onto the hard disk of the laptop. Because I am extremely paranoid, I also copy the files onto an external hard disk. This is just a 2 1/2" laptop Hard Drive that I have placed inside an enclosure. It uses USB2.0 and is powered via the USB port. Copying 2 Gb of images to it will take around 3 or 4 minutes.

At Home

Assuming nothing has gone wrong with the laptop, I plug it in to the LAN and copy the days worth of images onto the workstation. Here, the good shots are kept and the rest are binned. After processing the images through my digital workflow, all the image files, .CRW, .PSD and .JPG are then copied to a backup drive on the server. From there, another copy of those files is sent to a different external USB2.0 hard disk. I do it this way as both workstation and server are on 24/7 so it is important for me to have a copy of all the files on an external drive. CDs are also made, but only of the RAW files. It is only at this point that the files are removed from the laptop and the external hard drive.

It's not as scary as I make it out to be. Hard disks very rarely fail these days, but it is important to be prepared just in case. Remember the RAW file is your negative. Treat it well and look after it, you never know when you'll need it.

If you have any questions or comments on this article, please use the form on the contact us page. You may find my Digital FAQ's useful as well.

* There are highly specialised companies that may be able to retrieve data from a failed hard drive.

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