Choices of Hardware & Software Media to Backup Photos

There are various places you can have a backup of photos and other digital data from your computer so that in an event of loss of data at one place you can recover it from the other. We are living in an era where we have an abundance of hardware and software options to backup our digital photos. Here we suggest using one or more methods to backup photos depending on your needs, budget, and goal. Then review these selections to ensure time and effort required to backup photos.

Following we have a list of hardware and software media to backup photos with their pros and cons:

• CDs & DVDs
  Pros – These are probably the cheapest and most affordable media to have a photo backup. Bulk purchase is even more cheaper, creation in minutes
  Cons – unreliable, affected by heat, can be damaged easily, oxides may breakdown inside.
  Life span – few months to several years.

• External Hard drive
  Pros – Cost effective, faster and easy transfer from any other internal hard drive, few hard drives provide options like USB, e-SATA, Firewire as well.
  Cons – costly than internal hard drive, affected by heat, magnetism, and sunlight. Can be damaged if accidentally dropped.
  Life span – Many years of storage potential

• Internal Hard Drive
  Pros – cost effective as compared to external hard drives, easy transfer from first to second HDD (hard drive disk), gives you choice of USB, Firewire or E-SATA connections.
  Cons – may badly damage because of virus attacks, malware, Trojans and power loss, can still suffer from data corruption. Slow transfer rate if the data quantity is too large
  Life Span – many years storage potential, effective for all types of data. Can be used for long term perspective.

• Thumb Drives
  Pros – Has larger capacity to backup photos as compared to CDs and DVDs. Time efficient data creation and cost effective
  Cons – may badly damage because of virus attacks, malware, trojans and power loss, can still suffer from data corruption. Slow transfer rate if the data quantity is too large
  Life Span – several months to several years storage potential, effective media for quick storage of music, documents or backup digital photos.

• Network storage
  Pros – Total external storage, very secure photo backup option, separate from primary computer, access via account and password from any computer through a network connection, large storage capacity
  Cons – Can be expensive when compared to other medias.
  Life Span – The best long term storage potential.

• Online Storage
  Pros – External storage, access via account and password from any computer that has an internet connection,
  Cons – Can be costly, small storage capacity, can’t back up all type of data, there is a limitation, limited to internet access to store and retrieve data
  Life Span – Many years of storage potential