Thursday, April 16, 2015

The Importance Of Backing Up Your Stuff

Just a few weeks ago, I plugged in my computer and the external hard drives, but the hard drives weren't showing up on the computer. I tried plugging into another computer, and that didn't work either. I went to the original SD cards to see if by some miracle, I hadn't deleted the files off the cards. To my horror, I had. It was a scene from my worst nightmares! Before an event, every single time I lose sleep. I worry about what could possibly go wrong, do I have everything I will need for the production or event? Did I charge all the batteries, did I remember to put the extra chargers in my bag, are all of the lenses clean? 
When I first got started as a wedding videographer, I would sometimes have weeks or even months in between projects, so I wasn't worried much about backing up my work. I would keep all of my original files on the original SD cards until the project was done. If I had two weddings in a week, I would work all weekend to get a project done so that I could free up my memory cards for the next project. 
Over time, I invested in more and more memory cards so that I could always have the project files on the cards until I was completely done with the project. Eventually, I had more volume than I had memory cards, and there was no possible way to maintain my way of working the same as before. 
Nowadays I am a bit more methodical when it comes to my work, so I use a cloud backup service for all of my data. At any given time, I may have 5-10 projects that I am working on, so it is critical to keep backups of everything! First, I have 2 backup hard drives that contain archives of everything I have ever done, from there, I pay a monthly fee to a backup service that backs up everything on my computer, and anything attached. Even USB Flash Drives and external hard drives. 
After losing both of my external hard drives, I was sweating bullets, because I wasn't sure if the projects I was currently working on were truly backed up. I jumped for joy when I learned that everything was in fact backed up! If I didn't have that data backed up, I would have had to refund thousands of dollars to some very pissed off clients. Corporate work can usually be re-done, but weddings cannot! Do you back your stuff up? If so, what service do YOU use and what do you get for the money you pay?

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