I have spent the last three days dealing with the chaos created by a faulty SATA cable which fried my computer hard drive. You wouldn’t read about what happened with this cable, but fortunately I wasn’t actually far off with my computer backups. But it’s still been a bit of a headache.

However here’s some advice for photographers out there based on my experience:

1. It’s never too late or too early to start backing up – do it now!
If you haven’t got an automated backup system, then set aside a day a week/month when you do your backups manually. You can buy mirror drives now so if you lose one half of your drive the other part will still function. You can also get external drive caddies where you slot your hard drive into this, plug in the usb cord at the end and away you go.
2. Store little bits of data in lots of spots.
Sounds like a lot of work but if you lose a 1-2 terabyte drive it’s a lot more painful than losing a 500 gb one. Where I live in Queensland, Australia (a very humid climate) TB drives can burn out in the heat unless they’re in air conditioning or cooled by a fan.

3. Always always always keep the files on your camera
That is until after you’ve both pulled them onto your computer and created the backup (that means making 2 copies first, then deleting them off your camera).

Good luck!

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Feel free to email Jo at [email protected] with your comments/thoughts/photo aspirations.  See and learn more at www.visitedplanet.com