Around the time of the turn of the millennium, I bought my first digital camera which produced quite decent 2 megapixel images. Back then, I remember that memory cards were horribly expensive and having more than two 64 Mb cards was a kind of privilege at that time. At slightly less than 1 megabyte per 2 megapixel photo in JPG mode, I only had space for about 130-150 photos on those two cards; enough for a single day maybe, but hardly enough for anything more than that.

While the low capacity was a drawback in terms of shooting, it was good when it came to storing and backing up the photos. Back then, I had two physical harddisks in my PC, one of them was 20 Gb the other 40 Gb. So I had quite a lot of space to store photos in one folder on the 20 Gb disk and a copy of them in another folder on the 40 Gb disk. Had one of the disk ever failed to operate, I would have had a copy on the other one. Luckily this did not happen to me back then.

However, years later, despite a lot of general precautions, secondary external harddisks and back-ups on DVDs, I must have let things slide over a few days maybe. I did not have time to make a backup of the last 900 photos I took and (in compliance with Murphy's Law) it was then that my harddisk died and I unfortunately never managed to get those photos back. Of course, 900 photos out of tens of thousands of photos was only a minute part of the whole lot, but still, it was a painful experience.

Since then, I take the issue with backups even more seriously as I realized that a growing number of photos out of the huge collection I already got, seem to behave like a decent red wine: The older they are, the more valuable they become. I really would not want to lose any of my photos and I am really surpised and shocked that most people still take little to no efforts at all in order to protect their photos.

Copying photos from a memory card to a laptop computer and then re-using the card by formatting it in the camera has nothing to do with backups at all. It is just a change of the storage location of the photos to a new one, which (IMHO) is not very reliable at all. Laptop computers tend to be fragile pieces of electronics that are prone to break when falling off a table. Furthermore they usually spark interest of thieves who are not really going to return your photos to you, once they took your laptop from you...

Back in 2002, a study performed by Lexmark already came to the conclusion that there are billions of photos we never make any print-outs of. Well, as Lexmark sells printers, the result does not come as much of a surprise to me, but today, six years on, with digital cameras (standalone as well as those integrated into cellphones) now ubiquitous, the number of photos taken must be in the multi-billions range and it is quite likely that some 99% of all photos taken today never become print-outs. Quite possibly, more than half of all photos we take, we just look at once or twice before moving them to some "long-term-storage-folder" on our computers.

Whether each and every photo we take is important to us and worthwhile to be backed-up, very much depends on oneself. Still, if you love your photos, you should really make backups. How to do it? Well, personally I would classify backups into five main types. See which one you believe to fit your requirements best:

1. Minimum security

The most simple way to have a backup of your photos is to burn them on a CD or DVD and store them in a proper jewel case. Try to avoid "no-name" CDs and DVDs and store it in a place where you (and others) will hardly ever touch it. Preferably not too close to the ground, just in case there were a water leak or children playing. A place somewhere high up in a storage rack is better. And, of course, do NOT delete your photos from your harddisk. You may want to check every now and then whether the CD/DVD remain readable. If not, make a new backup immediately. As a rule of thumb: CDs are best, DVDs are more delicate and neither of them is 100%. Still, one backup is a lot better than none!

2. Intermediate security

If you are looking for more security, you may take all actions mentioned in the "minimum security" section; additionally you should consider to buy an external harddisk where to store another copy of your photos on. A small 2,5" external harddisk with a capacity of 250 Gb will cost you slightly less than 100 Euros as of spring 2008, which is not much compared to what thousands of photos probably mean for you. Store this harddisk in a different room of your flat/house where it is safe.

3. Advanced security

The degree of security you achieve with back-ups does not only depend on the number of copies you have and how well you maintain them. It also depends on the locations where you store the backups. Storing them in different places of your home is good, but obviously, if something were to happen to your home like a fire, earthquake, tornado, flooding, burglary, etc, quite probably it wouldn't have made a difference if you had created 2 or 10 backups. In order to reach a level of advanced security you need to store backups in locations that are independent and sufficiently far away from each other. Depending on the quantity of data you can either send an additional backup on CDs/DVDs to someone of your family or a friend you trust, someone who preferably lives a few hundred kilometers away. Alternatively you could consider some free online storage service like "Xdrive", "Adrive", "box.net", etc. They let you store quite a lot of data these days. Keep in mind, that as they are free, there is no guarantee that they do not lose your data; then again, I do not know of anyone who has lost data using one of those service. On the other hand you may have reserves with regard to what the people behind those services might do with your data, particulary if the photos are intimate. In that case you could either encrypt your files before uploading them or, if you are prepared to pay for it, you might want to go for a hosting plan where you get your own server with a big harddisk. The point in "advanced security" is not to have you backups in one single place.

4. Professional security

The vast majority of people won't need any more than "advanced security" which offers a lot of peace of mind already. Remember that each level of additional security involves additional efforts to be made by you in order to be up to date with your backups. The best backup method in the world won't be any good if you let things slide like I did at one point in the past. Well, for those of you who cannot get enough, there is professional security. I call this type "professional" because I understand that someone who makes a living from photography should take the measures described herein: In the first place there should be two computers where the photos are stored at all times, preferably a desktop computer e.g. in a studio and a "backup" PC (or at least an external HDD) at home. Furthermore it is essential to create regular backups of all photos on two separate CDs/DVDs (different brands!), obviously stored in different locations too. The location-related security aspect should be addressed with a safe deposit box in a bank's vault and if possible with an additional hosting where I'd suggest to place a encrypted RAR file with each month's photos. This kind of security is excellent and things must go incredibly wrong if you manage to lose all your photos with this method. However, keep in mind, that having an up-to-date-copy in your bank's vault means that you might have to visit your branch every week or at least every fortnight.

5. "Mission critical" security

With the preceding back-up solutions offering data security for almost 100% of individuals and professionals, there is a small group of people and companies that need an even better solution. Sometimes, data is so valuable that the loss of the same could involve bankruptcy or the loss of millions of Euros. For instance, take a look at stock markets data, land register data, blue-prints or chemical formulas for drugs which are all the sort of information you may not only want to see stored in some vault. This kind of information is better kept in a place as secure as it can possibly be. One of the most secure places is the so called "Swiss Fort Knox", where data is stored inside the Swiss mountains (mirrored at two locations). According to the operator, the place can even withstand a nuclear attack. While there are probably similarily secure locations inside mountains at other places in the world, being located in Switzerland's can be seen as an additional benefit with regard to political stability and discretion. Some photographers might consider their photos to be so important that storing them at a place like this is necessary and eventually provides the desired peace of mind. It is hard to think of a place where date could be stored in a more secure manner.

Still, with this review mainly focussing on physical data security, the aspects of security against unauthorized access and data theft would have to be addressed in more depth (if required). However, for most people, the one important issue is to make sure that their photos don't get lost. Take the trouble to make backups, because it is better to be safe than sorry; or as they say in Germany: "Discretion is the better part of valour".