Making a backup of your precious RAW files is EXTREMELY important. I found out the hard way as I lost one year of shooting in the rarest of the rare abandoned buildings. This article is aimed to keep YOU — the reader of this article– out of trouble!
Okay, so we all agree upon the simple premise that backups are needed. I think a good backup stands with a good routine. In this article I am going to layout how my routine works and I will also give some suggestions as well. So imagine you come back from a day of shooting. You hook the camera to your computer and this is what I do:
- Create a folder on your desktop and give it a convenient name for indexation purposes
- Copy all the RAW files from your camera to this folder
- ZIP this folder
- Upload the ZIP to your online storage. I use stack (transip.nl/stack)
- Then delete the ZIP file from your desktop
- Copy the folder from your desktop to your external harddrive
- Edit the pictures from the folder on your desktop
- When you are done get ridd of the folder on your desktop
- Now you have a ZIP backup on your online storage and the folder itself on your external harddrive.
I am using a Western Digital Elements (5TB) as external storage but there are a lot better ways to go about this. I am a fan of Sharkoons HD docking stations per example. You can get this for less than 40 bucks. Basically it is a USB connected device that serves as a docking station for SATA harddrives.
Another option which is even more advanced is an icy box. Basically this is a case that can store many SATA harddrives and is also USB connected. Take a look at this beauty:
Other even more advanced options are NAS servers and the like. Anyways I hope this article was useful to you and I also hope you will never loose your RAW files. Good luck and keep it safe!