Storage, how safe is yours?

I heard a quote the other day, 'Your Hard Drive is either dead or about to die.'

Ever heard that one? Apparantly HDD are prone to just packing up, I've had one do it and amount of messing around by an IT professional got anything back. That tiny little disc is spinning around thousands of times a minute, is it any wonder it gives up the ghost?

So now I have your attention, how safe are your photographs? Do you back them up? I'm guessing the answer is no from a huge percentage of people, it's just too easy to download them and forget about it because it won't happen to you.

The film days were a bit more forgiving, you had your prints but more importantly, you had your negatives, a tangable piece of back-up that as long as you looked after it, was always there if you needed it. Now we have a whole load of numbers squashed together that make up your picture, one dead HDD and it's gone, forever. Or maybe they are on a laptop that you leave on the train, or gets stolen, or falls on the floor........

So take half an hour (miss some crap on TV maybe?) and back them up on DVD's or another external drive. You can get over 1TB of storage for about £75, that is such a bargin and all your photos will be safe. Drop the drive off at a firend or relatives house and if something terrible happens (fire, flood riot!) then all those pics are tucked up nice and secure somewhere else.

It makes sense, so do it.

After all, it's just memories that you felt were worth recording in the first place....