BACK-UP IS IMPORTANT

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Two weeks ago we saw our family and friends lose everything in the horrific fires that raced across Los Angeles. We pray for those who’s homes were destroyed and were injured! Thank God our friends who’s home were destroyed got out safely, with the pets, camera kit and hard-drive full of photos. Unfortunately, all their photos, videos, negatives and slides were lost.  If you lost your home and need assistace, please reach out! The PAUL’S PHOTO and Creative Photo Academy community is strong and ready to help!

Every time disaster strikes we see the same thing… People running carrying the dog, the kids and the photo album. Are you prepared for when the fire, flood or earthquake comes? Are your photos, negatives and slides scanned and on a portable hard-dive? Are your digital photos backed-up to a hard drive that’s easy to grab? Do all your family members know what to grab and where it’s stored? BACK-UP is as easy as 3-2-1

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THREE COPIES

Experts agree we need three copies of ALL of our digital files. That’s the scans of your analog photos, digital camera files and phone photos! Don’t forget digital copies of your home movies and videos. Three copies to protect against computer crash, hard-drive failure, malware or disaster. I have three identical 12TB portable hard drives to back up my photos. When the 12TB drive is 80% full I will upgrade to 24TB Hard-dives and copy all of the data across. This way ALL my photos are on each of the three back-up hard-drives. Please have ALL the data on each drive. It’s hard to find photos on multiple locations and hard to grab a stack of drives and discs.

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TWO LOCATIONS

The hard drives are (1) on my desk and (2) in our fire-safe at home and (3) at work. Your 2nd location may be the safety-deposit box at the bank, an across town relative or friend (please, not the next-door neighbor) or at the office. Having them physically spaced makes it a little hard to manage the back-up process but will save-your-bacon in an emergency. My back-up drives are NOT plugged into the computer all the time. This protects the drives from wear, power spikes and computer virus!  The drives are only powered-up and connected to the computer when needed to move the files.

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THE CLOUD

Your last line of defense is Cloud storage. Choose a reliable provider with a stellar record. Buy a yearly or multi-year unlimited storage plan (rather than monthly fee and limited size) so there are fewer road-blocks to your back-up plan. Our pictures are the record of our life, or family and our memories. We need to spend a little effort and some money to protect those pictures. Please begin your back-up program today to save yourself from disaster tomorrow.

If you need help scanning your photos, negatives and slides or digitizing your movies and videos the LAB team will be happy to help you.