NOTE: This particular piece is full of quotes, references, and paraphrases from movies. They are noted at the end of the piece.
There are four keys to successful backups: Redundancy, Organization, and Redundancy.1
Organization, Mr. Tibbs2
The first thing anyone must do to make sure that they back up all their files (pics or any other kind of files) is to get them organized. Having files spread out all over the place is a recipe for disaster, because it guarantees that you'll forget to back up something, sometime. And Mr. Murphy always makes sure that the one thing you don't have backed up is the one thing that gets lost in a power surge, hard drive failure, or massive space-time inversion.
All of my pics are under My Pictures, with a subfolder for each year, and more subfolder under each year for each day. My pics are arranged and named chronologically, so it's very easy for me to dump entire years or even decades of photos onto DVDs or portable hard drives for backup purposes. And although there are folks who have forgotten entire decades, it hasn't happened to me. Yet.
After organizing your files into a single tree structure for backup, the next step is redundancy. And the step after that is also redundancy. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself.
Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!3
Whether you backup to a portable hard drive, a solid state device, or DVDs, doesn't matter if you keep those backups in the same building as your computer; you are still in danger of losing your files to the Four Elements - Fire, Water, Earth, and Air. The Fifth Element, well, that can save your files.4
Fire
Fire can strike anywhere, any time, and if your backups are in your home, it will happily consume them along with your computer, your furniture, and all of those terrible old albums you've been saving from your high school years (no, Wham! is not going to make a comeback).
Water
Water comes from both above and below, in the form of rain and/or flood, and can likewise soggify your backups at the same time that your computer hangs ten down the street with Keanu. Whoa!5 Oh, yeah, and when the fire department shows up to save your home from fire, they're gonna be shooting a lot of water all over the place, so even if The Beast doesn't get your computer and backups, the McAfferty brothers probably will. That red light blinking in the corner of your eye - that's your Backup Dissipation Light, and it's just gone into overdrive.6
Earth
Earth? Well, that is not a danger to everyone, but anyone who lives in an earthquake zone or on the side of a hill is in danger of having their backups swallowed up along with the computer, the house, and the car your neighbor has on blocks in his yard, in a quake or landslide. Remember, Lex's father always told him: LAND.7
Air
Air is everywhere - it's in the very air we breath8 - and when it gets angry it tends to throw things. Heavy things. Like cows, and combines, and houses9. And yes, if your house gets thrown over the rainbow, the wind will get your computer, my pretty - and your little backups, too! What a world, what a world...10
Problem solver? More like a problem eliminator...11
What do all of these truly awful movie references and groan-worthy puns mean? They mean that, if you want to keep your pics and other computer files safe from real disaster - not fake disasters like hard drive failures, power spikes, or cat urine - you need to learn a term used in the computer industry for decades: Off-Site Backup.
Off-Site - It's not just for hotels
Off-site backup is so simple, everyone can do it. All you need to do is periodically burn an extra copy of your backups, and store them somewhere other than your house. I store mine at work, but you can also store them with Aunt Marge or Uncle Vernon12, or both. Online photo storage is another type of off-site backup, because whatever files you have online are not in your home, so they will most likely be safe if your home goes PFFFT!! in a wild fire or gets launched into orbit by Uma Thurmon13. The key is redundancy, and redundancy means redundancy. More copies, in different physical locations, makes it more likely that at least one copy of your files will survive any disaster short of the Day After Tomorrow.14
Ya mean ya gotta use your hands?! That's like a baby toy!15
One more thing to consider - off-site backup is a great precaution not only for digital files, but for hard copy records, as well. Storing copies of important documents at remote locations will insure their survival in the event of an alien invasion or zombie attack, along with the digital files. My preferred method for doing this is to scan my paper records to PDF files and store them on DVD along with my digital files, but you don't have to go so high-tech; all you need is access to a photocopier and a little bit of organizational skill, and important stuff like medical records and bank statements can be safely squirreled away in your cousin Vinnie's basement in New York, safe from any disasters you might face at home. Assuming that Vinnie can read, he can mail vital documents back to you in the event of disaster, or you can rent a metallic mint green 1964 Buick Skylark and drive up to get them.16
The Department of Redundancy Department gratefully thanks you and expresses its gratitude for your attention.
Movie Quotes/References