I thought I would write this small piece to remind people about something very important in the digital sphere…backup your data regularly! Yesterday, I wrote an article concerning the digital world, and it’s relationship with analog photography.

I have also created a series of work such as Vanished which examines the loss of self and others in the non-analog world. Since I am closely looking at these aspects in photography, one would think that I would also think a lot about my digital data and what would happen should the worst case scenario come to pass; a hard drive failure.

Yesterday, I experienced such event. There were no explosions, sparks, whistles, or deep grating noises. I switched the drive on, the light came on, and nothing; the drive failed to spin up. I tried it on a second machine, same problem. This hard drive contains all of my personal photos and finished photo work, in full resolution, for the last 18 months. Gone, nada, no access to it anymore. So, yes, I am besides myself about it. The long and short of it, I had no recent backup of this data, and now all of my work in the last 18 months is hanging in the balance of the tech support at LaCie and the probable hands of a data recovery specialist and several hundred dollars of my hard-earned cash. The sad irony in all of this, is having been busy moving recently, I was aiming to setup a RAID configuration after settling in, just in case this ever happened. I was too late.

There are many ways you can backup data depending on workflows, cash, and importance. The Cloud, RAID, or simply periodically copying your files to a second drive, are several commonly used ways. If lack of backup of your data is something that has been worrying you, do not procrastinate any more. Get it backed up NOW.

I will write and update with what happens so stay tuned. Hopefully some of my work can be retrieved and I can put in place a more secure data backup plan.

– Peter