It happened again this weekend — I got a panicked email from a friend who lost the contents of his computer and didn’t have a backup. Thankfully, he had the bulk of his photos backed, but not all the photos on his laptop — not his Lightroom catalog (with all this edits), and not all his documents.
So, what does he do now?
Nothing. There’s nothing he can do. He’s lost everything on his computer, so know he’s pretty much starting over. He doesn’t even know everything he’s lost, but he knows it’s a lot, and I feel terrible for him. It’s heartbreaking.
Don’t let this happen to you, and it’s not a matter of “if” this will happen. It’s just a matter of “when.” But it doesn’t have to be a disaster like it was for my friend. It can just be a minor inconvenience. So don’t just backup your photo library. Back up your computer. Right. Now.
I use a program called “Carbon Copy Cloner”
Carbon Copy Cloner (from Bombich Software) is the easiest backup program I’ve ever used. It’s pretty much a no-brainer — you plug in your external backup hard drive (by the way — please use an external hard drive so if your computer dies, your backup doesn’t die with it), and it makes an exact duplicate backup of your computer. Yes, it’s that easy.
It reminds you to back up, too (which I love). It can remind you weekly, daily, every two-weeks, once a month — your choice, and when it does, all you do is connect your external drive and it automatically runs a backup in the background.
Why not do this today?
Why not start this year off with peace of mind and get your computer fully backed up.
Here’s an external hard drive I’ve used for years. It’s a WD (Western Digital), USB-3 drive and it’s a full two Terabytes which is enough to backup most hard computer hard drives, and it’s only $62.99 and you can have it tomorrow. $62.99. Tomorrow. Here’s the link.
I hope you’ll give this some serious thought today. Maybe one day you’ll post a comment here how it saved your butt, and we’ll both be happy. :)
-Scott
P.S. We’re less than 10-days from our first online conference of the year — the “Travel Photography Conference” and the day before I’m doing a pre-conference session for anyone registered for the conference on, “What makes a great travel photo” — that kicks off a week from Tuesday, and I hope you can join us. Tickets and more info here.
I’m putting the official conference trailer below in case you’ve got a sec. I hope you’ll give it quick look (it’s short).
