Out of space
Albert Pedrosa
Photo mania
WHILE it’s true that shooting digital spares you from the cost of film, you probably want to consider the cost of storage and the possibility of losing everything in one snap.
A few weeks ago, I felt time suddenly slow down to a crawl. I was working on a project and plugged my 500G external drive. A blue LED would normally light up to indicate activity, but it’s been a minute, and nothing. That’s when the time slowed down and the images of what’s inside the drive started to flash right in front of me.
Ok, that’s too much, but yeah, it was an awful feeling losing something virtual. I tried plugging the device later that day and for some unknown reason, it started working again. Immediately, I backed up all the files from that drive. These are the many episodes you’ll be experiencing with digital storage.
One photojournalist lost his life’s work when his hard drive was stolen by burglars. Jacques Nadeau returned home to find that burglars had stolen all the photos he has taken during his life and career. That’s the reason why some photographers would do an off-site backup.
For an additional layer of backup protection, some photographers would store a drive copy to another location, may it be cloud or a different geographic location. Cloud would be the most convenient, but the price is still quite out of reach, allthough Amazon just came out with a storage fee that might change the landscape of cloud storage.
Microsoft, Google and Dropbox all offer one terabyte of cloud space from $80 to $100 per year. One terabyte of physical storage will cost you around $75 with all the possibility of damage or losing it. Amazon, on the other hand, offers unlimited photo storage for one year for only $12.
Cloud storage is an ideal backup since files are protected with a multi-layer redundancy system that recovers files even if some of the drives fail. The hardware used for storage in cloud servers are far more specialized than the ones we use in our computer. The files are also accessible from virtually anywhere with internet access.
Digital storage is a serious matter for photographers. One way or another, your storage is going to be full and at some point, or these electronic devices will cease to function and will wipe away your photos. So, give your storage workflow a hard look and redesigning it to save more.
Ultimately, being aware of the storage problem ahead and possibilities that can happen to your precious images is a good start in finding out ways to best store your images. It looks like cloud storage is going to be a better alternative in the future since subscription seems to be getting affordable as the years go by.
Keep on shooting, everyone!
photomania.sunstar@gmail.com / www.grp.ph
