Photoshop Tip: File Management and Backup

PHOTOSHOP TIP: File Management and Backup - Part Two
By Rich Seiling

Hopefully, my last article awakened you to the need for a well planned backup strategy. To help you decide which backup solution is right for you, we need to look at some issues that are integral to an effective backup strategy: Redundant copies and redundant locations.

Redundancy
Redundancy means having multiple copies of your original data. The whole reason we want a backup in the first place is because many things can cause you to lose your data. If something can go wrong with your original data, then something can also go wrong with your backup. Redundancy is a way to stack the deck in your favor.

One copy does not provide enough redundancy. If you’ve just lost your entire hard drive and there is a problem with your one backup copy, you will be very sad. Sure, your odds are better than having no backup at all, but not as good as they could be. By making more copies, we increase redundancy. Two copies is better than one...but from what I’ve learned, three is the best minimum baseline for a backup. With three copies (stored as described below) the odds of NOT losing your data are significantly in your favor. Having more than three backups will give you .1 or .2 percent better odds, but it starts to double or even triple the costs. If you don’t make some educated gambles, your backup could cost more than the value of your original data!

So, lets settle on three copies plus the original as our “ideal” backup for photographic images.

Redundant Locations
Now that you have three copies of your data (plus the original, which is our working copy) you need to decide where to put those extra copies. If all of the copies are in the same place, they are all subject to any physical disasters that may befall that location. This might be a building fire, earthquake, flood, tornado, wildfire, your two-year-old son, the neighbor’s kids, the dog--use your imagination! Ideally, you would have all three copies in multiple locations, but this could get expensive and so complex that it would be too overwhelming to maintain.

At a minimum, you want to have one copy off site. I think the best bet for the primary offsite location is a safety deposit box in a bank. They call them "safes" for a reason--a safety deposit box offers a good mix of security and fire protection. You might want to consider a smaller branch bank in this day and age, as bigger buildings make bigger targets. One of the minor footnotes to the tragedy of 9/11 was the loss of the majority of the JFK photo archive, which was stored in one of the twin towers.

Safety deposit boxes are not cheap when you consider how small they are, so the second location might be at your parent’s house, or the home of a good friend or relative. For an extra measure of protection, double bag the backup in a ziplock bag to prevent water damage, and put it in a small fire safe from Costco.

Likely, you’ll be keeping at least one copy at home. If you plan on doing this, invest in a small fire safe and double ziplock the bag as recommended above.

Now, I know some of you may be questioning the fire safe advice. After all, how well do they really work? That’s a good question, and I hope none of you ever have to find out. A fire safe may or may not guarantee the safety of your backup media, but it does stack the odds in your favor. It’s better than nothing.

I know many photographers who buy fireproof gun safes to hold their cameras and negatives. Gun safes offer a great value, since they provide a good amount of space, and they protect from fire as well as theft. One local manufacturer has some impressive pictures of how well their product worked in a total burn down situation.

How far you want to take all of this is up to you. The key is to come up with a solution that makes it easy for you to store your media. If you have to drive 30 minutes one way to put a set of DVDs in the safety deposit box, you’ll probably do it less often then if it’s five minutes away. We’re not only trying to solve technical failures, but human failures as well. A perfect solution that you never use doesn’t protect anything.

Interested in learning more? Read part one or part three on this topic.