I’ve come to realize that a lot of my friends are relying on various online photo galleries to keep their albums secure and safe. and in many cases it’s the only copy of a lot of their photos. I wouldn’t feel good about someone else managing my data, so I urge you to read on for suggestions….
There’s no better option in my mind than to purchase an external hard drive to backup all your data… especially your media files — photos, music, and videos. There is no way to replace such memories and with digital cameras we’re snapping away like mad, events that include our family and friends… photos we would want to keep forever!! and, most of us have put together a music collection that would take days to rip again from our CD collections, or even more — are costly due to purchases made from iTunes.
To put it lightly, if the hard drive in your computer was to fail it would be a gut wrenching, shitty day…..
The major online photo galleries are offering options to archive your online collection to CD and I believe it would be well worth the money spent. These shops aren’t going anywhere, (as far as I know) and they backup their servers regularly, but we’ve all seen the previews for Cloverfield by now… I’m not going to be one of those nuts that claims the end of the world as we know it will soon come to an abrupt end, but I do feel strongly that one should depend on themselves for maintaining their data.
Click on the following links to find out how you can download your photos, in the full resolution files that you originally uploaded. Kodak Gallery and Shutterfly the most used online galleries will archive all of your photos on their site to a CD or DVD and ship it to you…. even with a large collection, you shouldn’t have to spend more than $50 for this service. (don’t hesitate for a moment!! you want a good backup of your photos right away)
I’ve had the experience of working with products from several different hard drive manufacturers and it is becoming clear that G-Technology makes the highest quality, and most reliable device.
There are two that I suggest… for more portable use, especially when connecting to a laptop consider the G-Drive Mini
they work with both Macs and PC’s, and I suggest you choose one of the combo drives that will have both FireWire and USB ports to choose from.
if you’re not going to be packing the external drive with you everywhere you go, the slightly bigger G-Drive may be best.
…with this one you’ll get more hard space for your buck and can even use it for multiple computers, to backup your spouses data too!!
G-Technology hard drives are so popular that you may find them out of stock at the manufacturer website, but can easily order them through one of their vendors.
You will most likely find these G-Tech drives in stock at Apple (they will work on a PC as well) -
* keep in mind, a backup is only a backup if it is a duplicate copy, and the file exists elsewhere… (on your desktop, laptop, or burned DVD as well) since there is always the chance that your backup drive can fail.
I beg you to choose to do your own backups, but if for any reason you are unable to pickup a hard drive for yourself, possibly you don’t feel comfortable with the process (I’d be happy to help) here is another option for you when it comes to backing up the data on your computers -
http://www.mozy.com/
For $4.95 a month you will be allotted unlimited space to backup your data, and while you are relying on a third party to secure your data, it is possibly the best choice when it comes to online backups.
Technology is amazing, though as we continue to depend on it more and more, there are some precautionary steps that everyone can take to avoid a catastrophe. It is a terrible feeling losing data, so please heed my advice, and don’t wait… get into the habit of backing up your data, and keep to a routine…
and don’t hesitate to ask me for advice along the way, I would be happy to help you.