It's March 31st - Are Your Photos Backed Up?

"Our photo albums, letters, home movies and paper documents are a vital link to the past.  Personal information we create today has the same value.  The only difference is that much of it is now digital. Chances are that you want to keep some digital photos, e-mail, and other files so that you—and your family—can look at them in the future. But preserving digital information is a new concept that most people have little experience with."
Preserving Your Digital Memories


Over 80% Of American Vital Information is Digital
When digital versions of your photos and documents are the only versions that exist – as 82% of Americans told Carbonite in a recent survey was the case - it is important to take steps to ensure these materials are preserved through an organized process of backup.


Spreading Awareness of the Importance
World Backup Day is an initiative dreamed up by a small team of users from social news website Reddit. It was created to spread awareness and get those who have never backed up to understand how important it is to keep your data safe.




More Than One System

According to Jack Schofield, if you want to make absolutely sure that you never lose any of your photographs, then use as many different systems as you can handle. This can include both internal and external hard drives, optical discs (CD-Rom, DVD, Blu-ray), Flash memory sticks or thumbdrives, and online storage. Ideally, at least one of these backups should be stored in a separate location, and online storage does that. Having "off-site storage" protects your photos from fire, flood and theft.


Schofield observes, each type of storage has its own advantages, so you will need to work out a strategy that suits the size of your picture library and the rate at which it's growing.


Why
The World Backup Day 2012 Website reports the world is juggling well over 1.8 zettabytes of data (1,099,511,627,776 gigabytes in a zettabyte..!) and it's not a question of if your computer drive will fail...it's when. Backing up is really simple and should involve a plan to automatically create multiple copies of your data on a frequent basis.


How
Advice from World Backup Day 2012 organizers suggest it's a good idea to backup files regularly and in at least two separate places, just to be safe. They also indicate it is smart to have a local backup and offsite backup locations. Although finding that your computer and one of your backups unrecoverable at the same time is very, very, unlikely, it's not out of the question. Backing up is a sure-fire way to ensure the safety of your most precious digital data, whether it be photos, videos or important documents.


To get started learning more about the many different ways to back up the data most precious go to www.WorldBackupDay.com...today!

Digital Directions is the official blog of E-Z Photo Scan. Learn more about archival quality digital preservation media and photo scanning supplies by visiting our website.