So you've finally made up your mind to save those important photos? Photos can be backed up in a few different ways. In this article, we'll talk about how you can back up your photos at home or with an online service.
Making a copy on a DVD or CD
To back up to a DVD or CD, you need a DVD/CD writer and software that lets you burn files to those types of media. Usually, you need more technical knowledge to use these kinds of solutions. A cheap way to back up is to use a DVD or CD. You can get such writer drives and software for less than $100, and each DVD or CD should cost much less than a dollar. Roxio makes software like this that many people use.
When you back up your photos to a DVD or CD, please keep it somewhere safe. A good place would be somewhere other than your home, like a family member's house, a trusted neighbor's house, or a friend's house. Another thing to remember about DVD/CD backups is that you should update them when you take new photos. The easiest way to do this, unless your photo album is very big, is to just burn your whole collection again.
Using an online backup service to make a copy of your files
Like a lot of other services, backup moved to the Internet. Today, there are a lot of sites that will back up everything from your digital photo albums to your Word documents. Most of these services charge between $10 and $20 per month, but some offer a limited service for free. The idea behind the service is simple: instead of making copies of your photos on a DVD or CD, you upload them to a website and make copies there. The site stores the backups in a safe place far from your computer. If something bad happens and you need your files, you can just download them from the site or have the site send you a DVD/CD with the files on it (not all provide the latter option). This choice can only be used if you have a broadband connection.
Using an online backup service is helpful in many ways. First, they are easy to use most of the time. Some offer software that you can download to your computer and then install. You tell the software where your pictures are stored, and it does the rest. It will make sure that new files are uploaded to the backup service and that the backup is always up-to-date.
Sites like Streamload and Xdrive offer this kind of service. Streamload starts with 10GB of free space, which is enough for about 10,000 2-megapixel photos, and Xdrive starts at 5GB and costs $10 a month.
