I wiggled my computer mouse with a barely still warm cup of coffee in hand. Flipped open Facebook, and there it was. A mama friend had just asked for a computer repairman recommendation. I immediately texted her inquiring about her computer and found out that she couldn’t get it to start up. She was desperate for a fix, since every photo of her two sweet girls were on there with no back up. None.
I tightly crossed my fingers that the problem was something that my techie husband could help her with, and after bit of troubleshooting, he luckily saved the images and fixed her computer with a spare hard drive we had on hand. You better believe that my friend immediately started backing up those photos after she got her computer back.
It seriously broke my heart to worry that she could have lost those photos. I know first hand that losing photos is painful and it still makes my heart sink when I go looking back through my photo archives and remember that I lost 6 months of photos from 2008 after a computer reformat.
A split second decision can wipe out months or years of photos.
And sometimes you won’t even realize you did it for weeks. That’s what happened to me. I blissfully reformatted my computer and didn’t even realize I was missing those photos until months later.
Since then I’ve become slightly obsessed with making sure even my back ups are backed up.
Did you know there are other threats to our digital photos?
When my friend recently had her computer trouble, she didn’t even realize that hard drives could just fail. How do they fail? Hard drives are simply mechanical devices that wear out. The lifespan of a typical hard drive is only about 3-5 years. So that means if you have a 3 year old, you’re already hitting what could be your hard drive’s last year of life! Let that sink in.
There are other disasters out of our control as well. Fire, flooding, earthquakes are all natural disasters that could destroy your home, along with everything in it, including those valuable hard drives.
If I haven’t totally scared you away from reading, and I’ve convinced you of the importance of backing up your digital photos, I’ve got a nugget of guidance to give you.
A BACK UP PLAN.
One that is easy to set up and will bring you peace that your invaluable photo memories are safe. With this guide, we’ll make sure you never have to experience the pain of losing photos. Your future self thanks you!
