ArtSites Updates

The Best Backup Strategies for Your Artwork Files and Other Documents
(posted on 27 May 2014)

Why You Should Backup Your Artwork


Recently, we were contacted by an artist who's external hard drive had failed.

Unfortunately, she had lost ALL of her artwork photos and other documents - UGH!

Sadly, Geoff and I get a variation of this email several times a year! :-(

So, I thought it might be good to discuss some General Backup Strategies for Your Artwork (and other files :-)

Firstly, let me say that we do regular backups of all your files on your website.

That said, your original files are not easily accessible (for your own protection) directly from your website.

So, if you do have an issue, we can create a zip file with all your original files and we'll then tell you where to download it.

But do keep in mind that our system only contains the files you've uploaded to your website.

Any other files or documents that only existed on your computer, hard drive or even an external hard drive may still be lost.

Which highlights another point, many external drives, CDs, DVDs, and other "discs" do not last forever!

In fact, the "average" expected lifetime of a CD or DVD with files is 2-5 years. And, for blank CDs or DVDs, it's 5-10 years.

The reason for these ranges is because there are several factors that affect a disc's life expectancy, such as:

  • Type (CD-R, CD-RW, DVD±R, DVD±RW, etc.)
  • Manufacturing quality
  • Condition of the disc before recording
  • Quality of the disc recording
  • Handling and maintenance
  • Environmental conditions

For a more detailed discussion, here's a nice FAQ about Optical Storage Media: Storing Temporary Records on CDs and DVDs.

And, if we look at external hard drives, you'll find similar ranges.

You may have noticed that many manufacturers set their warranty periods for 3 years (or less! ;-)

Beyond that time period, the failure rates go up significantly and it's simply not financially feasible to warranty them.

Common "wisdom" is that most hard drives (both external and internal ones) become "iffy" after 5 years. And, again, a lot has to do with the way the drives are run.

(Here's a nice commentary on the lifespan of hard drives.)

Now that you understand the risks of WHAT you use to backup your files, you probably want to hear some suggestions and solutions.

So, here are our thoughts on How to Best Backup Your Artwork Files and Other Documents.

Good Backup Solutions

Peter Krogh, a well known photographer has developed an approach for backing up images that everyone should use. It's called the 3-2-1 Rule which states that you should have 3 copies of each file, they should be on two (2) different media types and one (1) copy should be off-site.

Based on this rule, here are two specific solutions:

Cloud and External Drive

  • Cloud-based backup services
    • Here is a comparison of the most popular serivces.
    • They tend to cost about $60/year per computer. Some have multi-computer plans that reduces the cost per computer if you have several computers in your household.
    • These services install some software on your computer that will automatically backup your files shortly after they are created, modified or copied onto the computer, generally within about 15 minutes.
    • They send your files to a secure location somewhere on the internet. This give you your off-site requirement but does make people uneasy about someone else potentially having access to your files. There are remedies for this but these require some additional technical skills.
  • Buy an external USB hard drive
    • Remember to plug it in and copy your important files onto it.
    • Don't delete them from your hard drive. If you do that, one of your copies goes away.
  • One (1) copy on your computer, one (1) copy on an external drive and one (1) copy "in the cloud"
  • Ideally, you should keep all important documents on the computer being backed up. It is considerably more difficult to keep to the 3-2-1 Rule if you try to move files off of your computer to another device.
Multiple External Drives
  • Use at least 2 external drives
  • Keep one of those external drives in a safe off-site location, e.g. a friend or family member's house or a safety deposit box.
  • Swap the off-site external drive with one of the on-site external drives relatively frequently. Once a week would be good, once a month would be about the longest that we would suggest.
  • Frequently do a complete copy of your files from your computer to each of your on-site external drives. Ask yourself this question "would I be upset if I lost all of the files on my computer that have not yet been copied to an external drive". If you say yes, then you should do that copy. I would suggest at least weekly.
  • To keep to the 2 different media types, I would suggest that one of your external drives be memory based; that is a USB flash drive or SSD drive. SSD drives or USB flash drives are not affected by shock or strong magnetic fields. Both of these things can harm normal hard drives. If your computer uses an SSD drive, two normal external hard drives are sufficient.
Of these two solutions, the Cloud and External drive is likely to be the most reliable. Cloud services are much more reliable than a standard hard drive and the automated backup means you don't have to remember to backup. You still have to remember to backup your files to your external drive, but at least the safety of your files are not absolutely dependent on that. If you find that you just cannot remember or bother to backup to an External Drive, just using a Cloud service is a reasonable "minimalist" solution. Your biggest risk is that cloud service having a small failure that results in you not being able to restore a file when you need it most. Which is why you should also do the external drive backup.

The downside of a Cloud and External Drive backup is that it is more expensive than the Multiple External Drive approach, at least over time. The external hard drives/USB flash drive will cost around $100 each, depending on how much storage they provide. A cloud backup costs about $60/year. External drives will likely need to be replaced within 4 years so the cost would be somewhere between $50 and $80 per year in ether case.
If you are not doing a good job of backups now, the best single thing that you can do is to set up a cloud backup.

And, if you are already backing up to an external hard drive, add either another external drive or cloud backup and you'll be just about foolproof!

As always, if you have any more questions, please feel free to contact us!

Here's to keeping your files safe and backed up! :-)

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