What's the Best Way to Archive Videos & Home Movies?
Copy, copy, copy!
Introduction
Most of the mediums we use are actually pretty reliable to begin with. It’s the freak accidents that tend to cause us nightmares, and as the saying goes, “It only takes one.” The simple answer to this problem is “backup,” or copying your important data (whether it be your baby’s first steps or your most recent resume) but there are dozens of ways to get around this. This article will break down what you need to do to ensure you never anything.
Local Backup
The first thing important to us when considering our backups is convenience - if something goes wrong will it be difficult to get our files back? This will be a first line of defense that we hope we’ll never have to experience. With hard drive prices plummeting, the easiest and simplest way to backup your precious moments is to first store a copy on an external hard drive. For the average user this is a more than sufficient solution. If you run out of space, just buy a separate external hard drive. Once you’ve filled a drive, find the safest place in your home to store it. It might make sense to invest in a small safe such as this one. Some people will recommend backup setups involving disk arrays for local storage. Though this is definitely a viable solution, it’s a little complicated for the average user and doesn’t offer the portability of an external hard drive. Here is a BrightHub article that breaks down high capacity hard drives.
Off-Site (Remote) Backup
A local backup is usually sufficient except in the most extreme circumstances. To provide yet another layer of protection, we want to store another copy of our important data outside of our house primarily in case of fire, flood, etc. As most people are dealing with limited funds, we will only send the most important moments of all to an off-site backup. These are the ones that you never want to lose! There are a few ways to do this without making it too difficult. One is to have a friend or relative store yet another hard drive in their home. Another solution is to use an online backup service. There are many and features vary. Take your time when selecting one and make sure to read all the small print because some services will specifically not allow you to backup video files.
If you’re reading this and you don’t even have a local backup then get going! Something as simple as a power surge can cause you to lose your data. And when it comes to videos of our little ones growing up, it’s definitely always better to be “safe than sorry.”
