It’s a simple question, but it’s one a lot of people can’t answer. And it’s usually the question I end up asking when someone brings me a computer that won’t turn on.
Photos of the grandkids. Holiday snaps. Scanned copies of old family pictures. Years of memories, all sitting on one machine, and no copy anywhere else. When that machine fails, and one day every machine does, those photos can be gone for good. Not lost in a drawer somewhere. Gone.
I don’t say that to frighten anyone. I say it because the fix is genuinely easy, and almost nobody gets around to it until after something has gone wrong.
Why one copy is a risk
A computer is a machine with moving parts and a limited life. Hard drives wear out. Laptops get dropped, or have a cup of tea spilled on them. Sometimes a machine simply stops one morning with no warning at all.
If your photos only exist in one place, then the photos and the risk live in the same spot. The moment that one device has a bad day, so do your memories.
The answer isn’t anything clever. It’s just having your photos in more than one place, so that no single accident can take the lot.
“Isn’t it all backed up automatically?”
This is the one I hear most, and it’s a fair assumption. Phones in particular do a lot quietly in the background these days.
Here’s the catch. A lot of people are using the free storage that comes with a phone or an email account, and that free space fills up faster than you’d think. Once it’s full, the backups quietly stop. No big warning, just a small message that’s easy to miss. People often think they’ve been backed up for years when it actually stopped not long after they started.
So “it’s probably backing up” and “I’ve checked, and it is backing up” are two very different things. It’s worth knowing which one you’re in.
Two easy ways to be safe
You don’t need anything technical, and you don’t need to spend much. There are two simple approaches, and using both is even better.
The first is an external hard drive or a USB stick. You copy your photos onto it, then put it in a drawer. It’s a complete second copy that isn’t inside the computer, so if the computer fails, the photos are still sitting safely in the drawer. The only thing to remember is to copy new photos across every now and then.
The second is a proper cloud backup. This is a paid service, usually a small monthly amount, that automatically keeps a copy of your photos on the internet. The advantage is you don’t have to remember anything. It just runs. And because the copy is somewhere else entirely, it’s safe even if something happens to your home.
For most people I’d suggest both. The drive gives you a copy you can hold. The cloud gives you a copy that looks after itself.
A quick check you can do today
Have a look and see where your photos actually live. Are they only on the one computer or phone? If something happened to that device this afternoon, is there a second copy anywhere?
If the honest answer is no, that’s worth sorting out. Not in a panic, just sometime soon, while everything is still working fine.
Happy to help you set it up
If any of this feels confusing, please don’t let that put you off. This is exactly the sort of thing I help people with, and there’s no such thing as a silly question.
I can come to you, show you where your photos are saved, get a backup set up properly, and explain it in plain English so you actually understand what’s happening. Once it’s done, it quietly looks after itself and you don’t have to think about it again.
Give me a call on 0473 430 419 or book online at book.waggatechsolutions.com.au. Better to sort it now than wish you had later.