Originally published February 2011 and most recently updated December 9, 2022

OK, so I’m anal. I don’t just back up our images once, I do it in “multuplicate,” as I call it, for irreplaceable files and in triplicate for other files. Yup, you heard me, at least thrice, and more often, thrice. That’s four or more copies total of all Arnie’s and my photographs. As the old ad says, “…Because I’m worth it!”

So, why all those copies? Easy, if one or two of my external hard drives fail, we are still good to go. We’re professionals, and over the years, we’ve made too many images that we don’t want to lose.

For example, the one at the right, “Misty Islands,” has sold numerous times as a fine-art piece and hangs in many houses and offices here and abroad. It has been on calendars, in coffee-table books, etc. Even hung in a couple of museums. It also hangs in my office. I never tire of it.

You’ll see a couple more favorites from some of our workshops as we progress…

How about you? Are YOU worth it?

Let’s talk practicalities. Hard drives — or more properly, hard disk drive (HDD) — fail, whether internal or external. It’s not a question of if, rather a matter of when. For this reason, we have worked with multiple external HDDs, and we do NOT buy them all at the same time.

When one fails, it stands to reason that the others in that same job lot will fail, too.

And when we invest in new computers, all the information for our images is on those external HDDs, so we just plug them into the new computer!

According to a techno-freak friend of ours who is really thorough in his research, the integrity of HDDs has changed.

“…all of the major mfgs of HDDs have highly automated processes geared towards a target of zero product returns and Six Sigma control levels; that wasn’t universally the case fifteen years ago.”

Makes sense to me. After all, think of the backlash if they didn’t strive for zero returns of their products. The word gets around.

We have had really good luck thus far with Seagate and Western Digital 5GB disks. Our friend, on the other hand, prefers Hitachi 3.5″ HDDs (internal), designed for 7×24 enterprise arrays. Even that grand-daddy of computers, IBM, favors them. We assume they have also done their research thoroughly. The Hitachi HDDs, by the way, are good for Mac or PC. Beware, however, as the cheaper version of Hitachi HDDs are not built to the same exacting standards as the higher-price spread. One of the nice things about the Western Digital disks is that they come with a replacement warranty that obviously depends upon the model.

For us, the internal HDDs are not practical. We are on the road so much, that I need a master disk and one of my back-up drives for documents/images and for videos to take with me. When I’m home, I plug them into my principle computer; on the road, they run off my laptop. Arnie does the same. It saves transferring catalogues, images, etc. from one computer to the other when we get home, then again, back when we head off for another workshop.

It’s the old KISS principle. The same logic applies to getting a new computer. That said, when next we need to replace our external HDDs, I will certainly do my research and look into Hitachi’s offerings.

And just in case you don’t believe me, how about this? A few years ago, Arnie and I had three computers crash in one month — my laptop and his desktop and laptop. Fortunately, everything — and I mean EVERYTHING — was backed up in — as noted above — what I call “multuplicate,” including system files, preferences, documents, etc.

Sure, it’s a pain to cope with three new computers almost at the same time, but my desktop was operational, and I just did the dance of the flowers, going back and forth amongst the machines, as I installed this and that program on them and copied over the user-specific files from the backups.

Given that scenario, this is what I do, and this is what stood us in good stead when we had the computer melt-down. Take it or leave it, but at least consider what makes sense for you.

In the chart to the right, it pretty much explains it all. It is a simplified version with three backups plus one on a cloud. The colored, labeled boxes represent the files that are located on master and backup drives, internal (for computer system files) or external. They usually share space with other file groups. For example, my photos, documents, and my Lightroom catalog all reside on my red drive labeled “T,” and my videos are stored in a separate navy drive labeled “V.” Lightroom can read from multiple drives, so this is not a problem. Please note that When I note “Lightroom Backups” I really mean a copy of the Lightroom Catalog. Those boxes are not large enough for a full explanation.

And before I continue, the Backup file you create when you close down Lightroom should always be stored on a separate hard drive from the location of the catalog. In my case, I store the backups on my home computer in a User folder called “Documents Local” to differentiate from the documents that are stored on my T drive.

I have main backup drives, along with second and tertiary ones. The latter two get regularly switched out in our safety deposit box. The main backups always travel with me along with the main drives.  Arnie has a similar system.

We also subscribe to CrashPlan a cloud-based service that continually backs up files.

Alright, now you ask, “Why all those hard drives?”

Simple … redundancy, redundancy, redundancy.

I also do my backups several times a week.

My thought is that when the next hard drive fails — and we already know it will at some point — at least I don’t have to do everything at once. Thank gawd! Even our computer-help guy on all his fancy, high-speed equipment, says it would take a very l-o-o-ong time to copy everything over at once.

One very important thing to keep in mind … do NOT allow your HDD, whether internal or external, to get more than two-thirds full. Your HDD needs room to move things around if necessary.

Some years ago, I sensed that two quite-old drives were ready to misbehave badly. (Really, they ought to have been paying rent, as they’d been around for many more years than is normal.) Anyone who knows computers knows what I mean.

Over the course of the week when I originally penned this blog, I was backing up onto two new HDDs. Meanwhile, I kept the old ones, pushing five-plus years old, until everything was done and confirmed.

As noted above, backups can take some time. I tend to do them at the end of the day or overnight once I make sure the program has gotten started properly, sipping a glass of red wine that Arnie brings out to me in my office behind our house. If I have to start on a new HDD, I work in batches timed for my morning outing at Cup-A-Joe, Ladies’ Walk along the Eno River, dinner with friends, and/or a good night’s sleep.

What to do with those old drives? As another computer-guru friend says, “The best thing to do is to toss them up in the air over your driveway, and that will take care of it.” And so I do this easy, non-technical approach. Several times! When the cases have splintered or cracked, I am satisfied. It is certainly a lot faster than deleting everything from them or reformatting them!

By the way, I use synced mirror backups. You can treat these just like the original materials. Many backup programs put the backups into folders labeled with long strings of letters and numbers within yet more folders similarly labeled. UGH! I can read my backups just the way I read them in the original folders. I use a program called ViceVersa PRO that I have used for YEARS! The free version of ViceVersa works well for most people.

For Macs, there are alternatives, including Time Machine and FreeFileSync (check out our Software Resources, so that you do not download software you don’t want), so check out the possibilities. Just make sure it does synced mirror backups.

Off-site Storage

One other thing to seriously consider, and that is to put one of your backups off site. That way, if some physical disaster strikes, you are covered elsewhere.

A friend of ours sends an external HDD to his daughter in another state with postage-paid return. Once a month, he sends another one to her, and she sends the first one back. There are three HDDs in this rotation — one at home, one off site, and one in transit.

Others use a safety deposit box, something I have successfully done. However, and this is a BIG HOWEVER, some big banks, I have heard, have some sort of electrical security that apparently can wipe out a hard drive. If you consider using your safety deposit box, I would err on the side of caution and test it out with just a few images that you have backed up elsewhere.

We are ensconced the the age of the cloud, but for Arnie and me, clouds are ephemeral. Ever watch them above you? They morph into other shapes and wisps and even disappear entirely. For this reason, we do not look to clouds for main backup.

Also, we often travel to places with little or no Internet connection, and what good is a cloud then? The cloud service we use is CrashPlan that we also use to backup to yet another HDD. The first backup took what seemed like weeks, but now it updates with little fuss.

Whatever you use, onsite and offsite, be sure to do it in “multuplicate.” Backup, backup, backup!

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