What Price Would You Pay To Save Your Photos?

Recently, a new friend of mine brought me her son's computer.  It had completely crashed.  It couldn't be booted at all. He had taken it to the techs at one of the big box stores to see if they could fix it, or at least retrieve the data on it.  They weren't able to make it work.

Most of the files on the laptop weren't that important to her son, but he really wanted the photos that were on there.  I recommended my own tech guys, who have saved my photos from a similar fate in the past.  I don't know the end of the story yet, but I'm hoping that they can retrieve those files for him.

But that situation got me to thinking.  How much would I be willing to pay for my tech guys to retrieve my photos from a dead hard drive?  And, what if they couldn't do it for any amount of money?  (I've seen that happen to another friend in the past.)

In addition to this, I learned today that Costco has temporarily suspended their Photo Center service because their third party vendor (who also services Sam's Club and CVS, among others) was hacked last week and they haven't yet determined what data may have been breached, or if it's safe to go back online.  So services have been suspended until at least early August.

What does this mean for you?  Well, if you use Costco or one of the other affected sites, you have no access right now to the photos you've previously uploaded.  Probably not a huge problem for most of you, but what if you don't get access back?  Did you print those photos?  Do you have another backup?

This is where I beat my drum about setting up your shadow copy in Historian (this is a bit of an old post, but the concept is still the same.  I'll work on updating that soon).  It's also where I remind you about the importance of backing up in general, and how that works.

If you're not comfortable with the different backup strategies available, I actually have a quick booklet on that subject on the site that's my OTHER home on the web, now called Simple Digital Life.  If you're interested in learning more about creating your backup plan, be sure to hop over there and check it out.

I hope your week is starting out well.  Until the next time, Enjoy!

~ Deb