Many of us probably have pictures of ourselves, our loved ones and other things we care about in our homes. It's one of the things that makes your home a home.

Many of us also probably have pictures on harddrives, CDs, as well as other discs and types of memory.

In many cases, your home may be the only place that some of these photographs exist, whether in print or as files. The simple questions is why?

If disaster were to strike, what would happen to the photographs you care about? You might be like my mother who wishes she had more from her childhood, when many of her pictures were destroyed in a flood. With a few steps, that most of us can probably do, you can save copies of your photographs as files, scan them onto discs, and have someone who lives at some distance from you keep a copy of the disc for safekeeping. Convince them to do the same, and if anything ever happens, one of the things you can do to create a new home is print new copies.

Some of the photographs I have I consider priceless. One I love is stuck to the frame, but I am lucky to know my sister also has a copy. There is one that is the only that exists of me with my grandmother. If preserving a copy is so simple as getting it onto a DVD disc and making a copy of that disc, it's an effort of some time and a few dollars.

While your at it, why not reduce some of your vitals records to a digital format and put it on the same disc.

Buy a Pro account at Flickr.com . Unlimited storage with the ability to upload several GB a month. Costs less than $10 a month.

But 50 DVDs costs $30 or less. I don't know that I could fill that kind of space.

Do both.

Both is better.

Mostly, just make sure you do something.

Don't forget... DVDs do and will degrade over time. Especially the writeable ones that everyone uses for backup.

External USB Hardrive storage is pretty reliable. The magnetic platters that they use are pretty robust. Even magnetic tape is pretty hardy.

Thumbdrives are prone to degrading. I think 10 years is where they max out.

Best solution, multiple backups. Backup to DVDs and USB drives. Keep copies stored someplace safe. Obviously "offsite" backups are the way to go.

Digital media is fragile.

All I can say on this subject is you can't be paranoid enough with your data - especially your photos.

If you DO decide to digitize, you MUST - must must must must - have a DAILY backup plan that you don't ever fail to do.

You need AT LEAST 3 separate physical devices to back up your data and you need to make sure one is NEVER left in your home.

Use an online backup service as a 4th place to keep your files. I use Google Picassa a lot.

Scanning is a pain in the butt, takes a long time. It's worth it.

We've been 100% digital since the late 1990's and we've experienced every single form of data problem you can - you need a constant backup program.

Also, if you have some pictures that you can't scan, you can get good solid tripods for digital cameras that will let you take a picture of the picture to make a scanned image of it.

Be careful with online storage, most don't have any sort of gaurentee that their backups are valid, I lost a lot of data a few years ago when hotmail tried to use windows servers, all I got was an e-mail saying they suffered a loss.

I don’t like the idea of on line storage, putting your photos under control of someone else far away that I don’t know does not sit well. If the company goes under, gets bought out by someone else or whatever reasons you could loose access to your data. Web sites disappear all the time and I would guess that a few of them were involved in archival storage.



Better to burn a CD or DVD and store it with a relative or friend. Not much chance both of your homes will burn down. External storage (CDs, DVDs, Flash Drives or removable hard drives) is too easy and inexpensive to not have.

Online storage is the "last resort" - own your media, control your media, and have a plan "D" after that.

No solution is fool proof. But by utilizing more than one, you're covered if one fails. I keep mine on a NAS hard drive and Flickr just in case.

Flickr is owned by Yahoo...I don't think they'll be 'going under' anytime soon. They also have good privacy options and creative commons licensing to allow fair use of your material if you choose.

1. RAID (MIRRORING)
2. Backup to 2 external HDs nightly. (Take 1 when you go on vacation or away for more than 1 day.)
3. Backup to DVDs. Store 1 copy in house 1 off-site.
4. Store some online. (I have 30gb+ and even with super fast upload and my own server space I am not putting them all online.)

I use an online backup service called Mozy. It backs up automatically hourly and has a good privacy policy. I haven't had to use it yet to retrieve data, but uploading has been a breeze. It costs about $5/month.

That said...I still have some photos I have to scan. This will remind me to get my a$$ in gear.

Cheers,
Logan.

restoring is another issue with the online servces. Imagine you did have to bug out without your computer/laptop and had to get a new one and download your backups, how long would it take, or would it even be possible. Sharing bandwidth or phones lines with others it can take extra time to get all the data restored. or in my case if I bug out to the farm them I'm going to have to pull down multiple gigabytes of data over a 34k dial up connection. I just can't think of any situation where online backups could be useful. has anyone using them tried a full restore, how long did it take, does all the exif data stay intact in the pictures, etc.

Eugene, while a "restore" from online may be slow I think most just store data and not all the rest of your software and operating system. For data it is just another layer of backup to protect against losing everything. With a record of your configuration most software companies will help you replace software and this can also be insured.

Part of your remote backup could be a periodic mirror, which could allow a full restore, though that is expensive in terms of money and bandwidth. It sure would be preferrable to nothing!

The primary reason for adding remote backup to a professioanally secure site far from your location is, of course, to reduce the risk of total loss from an area- or region-wide disaster.

And that's the point of making online backup data "last resort". Depending on the service you use, the meta data is preserved (for example, box.net is just a plain file storage system, while flickr is more than that).

AND that's why I use EXTERNAL DRIVES - I can build a computer out of an old microwave, some duct tape and a box of AA batteries - so computers are a commodity, not for the bugout.

That said - my eeePC 701 is DEFINITELY in my emergency kit. Connected with an external drive, it's all you really need.

I've been looking at those epc's as they are the only thing smaller than my laptop. Can you put a larger internat drive? I make sure to never use external as a primary drive, only for backup copies. I've seen too many people with external drives that become their primary storage and then they have to keep track of which drive has their data. Plus its a pain trying to balance the laptop on top of them on a lap

I'd recommend a paid service over a free one for sure. I use http://www.smugmug.com , which costs $40/year. It has outlasted a LOT of free services, including Kodaks, Adobes, and others. I would bet on Yahoo's service staying around for long, though it HAS done better than most.

The nice thing is that with Smugmug you get UNLIMITED downloads.

Flickr does allow folks to pay for unlimited downloads though, so that might be why they've lasted longer than most free sites.

No, there is no internal drive - it's all flash ram. I use the eeePC in the same way you might use a motorcycle when you own a car - not a primary, a handy and fun secondary.

But it reads and writes almost anything, and works fine as a quick and easy data management thing.

I know many people love on line storage, but I just don’t feel comfortable giving other people I don’t know, will never in my life see in person and don’t really have any interest in my data. any of my files.

Data can be hacked, stolen, viewed by others working at the backup company, deleted by a disgruntled employee, given a virus by pathetic people that are misfits and can’t adjust to life, lost when a company goes out of business or is sold to another company.



I have a garage that is 100 feet from my house. I put backup CDs in a plastic case in it for storage. It’s unlikely that it and the house is going to burn down.

Don’t have a garage; use a camper or a relatives house.

You in a place with a staffed fire company? Because 100' is not at all far for an "exposure" fire - a second fire started by the main fire. We often get outbuildings involved when the main house goes up (and vice versa) especially if it's windy.

Most of my pictures are not important as I’m not a big picture person. I have less then 50 that I consider important enough to back up. I have several hundred megs of Word and MS Access files (my business files and hobby files) that I have copies of. Nothing earth shakingly (sp?) important.

I keep the house copy of 2 CDs in one of my gun safes (I only have just over 800 Megs of things I need backed up and not all that is really important), it said it was fire resistant when I bought the safe in the mid 1980s. I don’t know how resistant it is as it’s old and I can’t remember for how long it will take the heat. The fire resistant (one is resistant, one is not) gun safe is right behind me, its 5-feet from the computer so it’s easy to put the CDs in it on the shelve. The copy in the garage is just in a plastic Tupperware case so yes it could burn. With the house and the garage I feel somewhat safe from data loss. It’s just computer files, not life & death things.


I would guess that most people don’t backup any computer data. I make my own computers (buy the parts and put them together myself) and always have friends & family call me to look at them when things go wrong with their computers. No one I know backups data.

...

The fire department here is fairly good, my dad was a fireman for 41-years. My brother is a fireman (just got a 20-year pin a few weeks ago) I have seen a lot of burned out homes over the years. I have fire extinguishers on each floor. I also have smoke alarms through the house. My dad would smack me if I did not have them.

I treat fire seriously, if you look at this picture of the Thermette I use to heat water while camping, you will see a collapsible yellow water bucket. It’s full of water just incase the fire were to start to get out of hand. I use it all the time for this when I go camping and have any fire.