Backing up your images

I still hear about so many people losing their images because of hard disk failures, corrupted profiles on NT based operating systems or accidental deletions.

Follow these guidelines:

1.  Create a folder on your C:/ Drive (NOT in 'my documents') called 'my photos'.
 

Now every time you add photographs, create a folder on that day that you download images from your camera to your hard disk.  If it's a special occasion - add some words too (you may want to add words anyway if it's a work collection) eg 2016Oct31_Attenborough.


















That's your basic housekeeping taken care of in terms of file management.

Now buy a backup device.  I recommend the WD Ultra Passport series.  You can buy one from Amazon.

Make sure the advert says it's a new device and don't buy it from some sources like Ebay as it might be a refurbished drive.  To validate the warranty, you'll need to create an account with WD on https://westerndigital.secure.force.com/ind/?lang=en.




After registering the drive and ensuring you have 3 years of warranty cover, run the software on the drive.  It will install a program called 'WD Backup' which comes free with the drive.



Tell the program how often you want the backup to run.  Then select the folder that you created on your C:/ drive called 'my photos'...and it's done.





You can also kick off an immediate backup if you've just got back and downloaded images from a work session.

If you work as a photographer, I recommend that you make a triple copy of your images in the same way.

If you work as a writer, a musician or want to save your music collection or back up any files, use the same process of file management and backup regime.  NEVER store documents in 'my documents' on your PC.  It's the most common way of losing data.

Please share this article around if you found it useful.

Regards,

Villayat 'Wolf' Sunkmanitu