Just realized my old backup plan for finished art was a ticking time bomb

For years, I'd just save the final .psd file and maybe a .jpg to my computer's hard drive and a single external drive I kept in a drawer. That was it. Then last month, my main drive failed and I found the backup drive was corrupted too, losing three months of client work. I switched to a 3-2-1 system: three total copies, on two different types of media, with one off-site. Now I use a local SSD, a NAS, and cloud storage. Has anyone else had a close call that made them totally change their file management?

2 comments

2 Comments

michael_bennett119d ago

Three copies on two media types with one off-site? That sounds like a full time job just to save a picture file. How much time are you really spending moving files around versus doing the actual work? A good external drive in a drawer worked fine for decades. Isn't this just making a simple problem complicated because of one bad luck event?

hugo_jones9d ago

Totally get where you're coming from, but honestly, the time thing is a myth. My backup software runs in the background and syncs to the cloud automatically, so I literally do nothing. The real job was the panic and the unpaid rework when my old single drive method failed. Calling it "one bad luck event" is like saying you only need to wear a seatbelt if you plan to crash. Data loss isn't about luck, it's about when your old hardware finally gives up.