Last Updated on 30th October 2025

I have been an amateur photographer and working with digital photos for many years. Combine this with even more years working in IT, having a photo storage and backup strategy and process for my photographs is very important to me.

I would be devastated if I lost my precious photo vault. How about you? Just imagine: you lose everything and you cannot recover from it. This guide applies to both professional and amateur photographers, along with anyone who wants to protect their data.

Disaster Recovery for Photo Storage and Backups

I am not starting this guide with a spiel about hard drive failure, providing a list of things you can do if that happens. There are many events that can cause data loss.

Many years ago I got involved with the topic of disaster recovery. It’s still a common phrase in IT circles nowadays, but the lid was just being lifted back in the 90s.

Disaster recovery, or DR as it is often termed, is not just about backing up data. It’s a strategy for storing data, and recovering systems, resources, and data in the event of a disaster. It’s pointless having your data to hand after a disaster event, but not having the hardware to load it or software to read it. So DR is about recovering the whole system, not just bits of it. A laptop’s hard drive is but one component of a system.

What is a disaster?

Disasters can come in many forms and various sizes. A simple power cut can be very disastrous for some, but just an inconvenience for many. Modern computer systems and software tend to cater to these types of events by performing background snapshots of documents, files, and such like, as we work. It can still catch us out though.

DR is about listing various scenarios and assessing what each of these means to us – we have different needs. We can score, perhaps weighting, each scenario accordingly, based on the effects of each outcome.

This may seem a bit OTT, but it’s really not! We live in a digital age. Our whole world is immersed in binary data flows that reside on digital devices like smart phones, tablets, laptops and desktops. These devices store data locally on media designed for the given device. All are prone to failure!

You’ve likely heard a few horror stories. The one I recall is someone losing all of their photos that were stored on their phone. They simply hadn’t done a thing to back them up. Thousands of family photos – past and present – all gone!

Scenario Planning

We can play out our common processes and practices. Here is a photography example…

I go out for the day and load my camera with some great photos, hopefully. I return home and I copy my photos to my laptop’s photo storage area. 

Think about the above scenario. I have removed the vulnerability of having photos solely on my camera storage by copying them to my laptop. They now exist in two places and, in so doing, I have created a photo storage backup. A bit too simple?

It’s interesting that, throughout the day, I have the photos being created and stored in just one place – my camera. Like many people, I don’t put any effort into backing these up. If I were a wedding or events photographer, or maybe visiting a special location, I might put some thought into this and take some method of making a copy on location. There are many devices ranging in price, but I like the portability and versatility of the small portable USB flash drives and devices that are available to support this scenario. There are larger capacity versions, but it’s all down to personal preference.

Next part of the process…

On my laptop, I’ll sift and put my better photos through the usual post-processing editing stage, enhancing them as required.

This part of the process now makes my laptop copies and changes vulnerable. However, I can still recover the originals from my camera and I can repeat the same process. It would be a pain, but not a complete loss. This is a key point – a photo data loss at this point is something that I can recover. This scenario would carry more weight if my process is to wipe the photos from my camera right after copying them to my laptop. Some software has an option to do just that upon importing photos from a camera. Don’t tick that box!

Thankfully, post-processing software tends not to alter the original photo nowadays. But having copies of your photos at this stage (on camera and editing device) is a good tactic.

The point I’m making is just by thinking through everyday processes or workflows and the disastrous events that could play out, it’s possible to rethink things and work with more of a DR mindset.

Worst Cases

Most articles about photo storage and backup methods emphasise disk drive failure. Yes, disk drives fail. It’s a disaster, but not the only problem for photographers.

Let’s talk about bigger events. The worst thing that could happen, for me, is a major fire in my home. Getting flooded or structural damage by a run-away 10-tonner is also bad, but in all likelihood, the storage media in my camera and laptop will survive and data can be recovered. Fire is a different and much bigger threat.

House fires tend to start small, but combustible material with a small flow of air causes these fires to get out of control and incredibly hot in no time. It is unlikely that disks and storage, mechanical or solid-state, will survive such that data can be recovered from them. The fire brigade will flood the property to put out the fire. Also, fire often causes structural damage. So, a fire might incorporate all of the above scenarios. Aside from a bomb blast, it doesn’t get much worse.

Another serious one is theft. Few people think of this scenario, but it’s very real. Someone could break into my home and take my camera, laptop and any other electronic gadgets that might get a quick sale. In doing so, they take my photo storage and backup systems. All or most of my data!

Think also about fire, accidents and theft in vehicles and public transport. This might be a higher priority scenario for travelling professional photographers, but we all like to go on holiday.

Businesses should also be concerned that in the event of a police investigation into a business or a member of staff, the police can close business premises for investigation. How would the owners sustain that loss of business continuity?

Sorry for scaremongering, but these things do happen.

Photo Storage and Backup Equipment Insurance

Knowing the worst cases, I need to know that I can recover the equipment I use for my photo processing, storage and backup devices. Given we are talking about a possible loss of my home or important contents, these things, as a hobby, are just the tip of the iceberg. However, they will need to be recovered or replaced at some point.

For me, the replacement of such equipment is supported by my house and contents insurance(s). It’s important to note, though, that it will take some time for an insurance company to assess the damage and agree on a settlement figure, and finally pay out.

Then there is the task of actually purchasing replacement gear. I imagine that this would be a struggle without my laptop and, maybe, my phone. The things we take for granted are such important aspects of our everyday lives.

So, the message here is that, so long as there is adequate property and contents insurance, system hardware can be recovered by buying replacements, although it takes time. That’s great, but what about the data?

Data – Importance and Growth

For life’s eventualities, from a disk failure to a worst-case scenario, it is vital to have backups of important data.

It isn’t necessary to back up every scrap of data. Some data has no real importance. I’m like many people who simply horde data because I can. I am a little selective, though, when it comes to backing up data. Although gigabytes of disk space is relatively cheap nowadays, it still has a price tag and can get expensive when backing it up. Larger disks that are filled with data also take a good while for systems to run their indexing and other operating background processes. So it’s worthwhile having a filing system in the data storage system where important data can be differentiated from non-important data.

For the photographer, of course, there are photo assets. We take photos and store them, so we naturally think these are important for backing up. What about the licences and details of the software and other resources supporting the editing workflow? Are these backed up anywhere?

I try to determine how much my data will grow over the foreseeable years. It’s not too difficult to take a rough cut by totting up the number of files created over the last year as a percentage of the total. Then use this percentage to roughly reveal the number of gigabytes of data growth that will created in the coming years.

So, thinking through the importance of data and whether or not it can be or even ought to be backed up for recovery is a good step. Knowing roughly how much data is created in a year helps to size up various backup methods. Why buy a 10TB Billy Bifter NAS drive for your 2TB photo storage when a much less costly 4TB is a more than adequate backup device over the next 3 years or more?

Also consider longevity. Technology is ever evolving. Today it it commonplace to be working with storage devices over 1TB in capacity. Ten years ago, that might have been just 100GB – 10%. It will likely be necessary to re-assess the strategy, processes and equipment used every 3 years or so.

Photo Storage Backup Devices and Frequency

When it comes to data, all too often I read or hear the advice to go and buy a NAS drive to back up household files. I have to admit, it annoys me.

They are good in that they sit there in the background, continually checking for updates on all connected devices, synchronising or copying without anyone having to do anything. Except to switch it on. And that’s the thing with NAS drives, they need to be on. All day, every day.  For me, that’s just too much. It’s not good for the planet either.

Like many amateur photographers, I might make sizeable data changes just once a week. Where I make smaller changes, as already explained, I can recover any losses quite easily from the originals on my camera.  If manipulating photos were a day job for me then, of course, a NAS drive might be suitable.

The other issue I have with NAS drives is that they are often difficult to set up and configure for each member of the household. Much will depend upon the NAS drive product or make. Just to note: I bought a well-recommended NAS a few years ago. Both of the supplied disks failed within a year.

Go back to the worst-case scenario. In amongst that mangled and melted mess will be my laptop, camera, plus all that is precious that makes up my home. If I still had a NAS drive, that would be in there too. Destroyed beyond recovery. No data!

So, a NAS drive isn’t the be-all and end-all of data backups. It’s an option, one of many.

Make use of old equipment

I once had an old computer that I fitted with a 4TB drive and backup software called SyncFolders, which is also loaded on my photography laptop and other household computers. SyncFolders is free, the old computer cost me nothing extra. I had to buy the 4TB internal drive.

I now have one of those tiny PCs (I use it with the TV screen in my living room) with a 4TB external USB drive. It’s doing the same job as the previous bit of kit, but it’s also great for family entertainment and online meetings.

I’m able to schedule SyncFolders to either copy or synchronize from files on my laptop and other household devices to the tiny PC’s external drive.

USB drives, powered and non-powered are coming along leaps and bounds. They come as traditional mechanical spinning drives or solid-state drives (SSD) priced from under £100 to £300 or more at the time of writing. Keep an eye out for SSDs. Being smaller and not needing a power supply, they simply plug into your device’s USB port. Software like SyncFolders can be used to sync or back up data. Keeping things small and neat means you can take the backup device with you while you are away if only keeping it in the car. If the worst happens, you still have the data.

Take a look at the dazzling array (excuse the pun) of USB Backup Devices.

Backup options don’t need to be expensive, they just need to work and cater for your disaster scenarios.

Cloud Thinking

By this point, I hope you are thinking that my backup PC and USB external drive solutions put me in the same position as a NAS. They back up my data but won’t withstand my worst-case scenarios.

I was with BT, using their mid-range Halo service, which came with 1000GB (1TB) of cloud storage. That’s quite a lot of storage and, where I spent the time to sort out my really important data, I consumed just 50% of that space for a considerable time. However, I moved away from BT and my family’s data grew.

Having done quite a bit of research into Cloud solutions, I went with IDrive in 2024. They often have discount sales but they will typically charge around $115 per year for 10TB of storage ($75 for 5TB). Their software is fairly easy to set up and it runs on a schedule (mine runs every time I start up my laptop). I have it running in ‘backup’ mode. They offer a synchronisation mode but this requires a storage area from which to synch to and from. In other words, you’d need to give up space on your device for a working storage area, as with Dropbox and Google Drive, which might not be overly beneficial. See the hot tip below for a potential way around this problem.

Backup mode works well, until you move files or rename folders on the local device. You will end up with a backup of both old and new changes – duplications that take up space. The software enables a refresh, which is basically to kick the process off from scratch to tidy everything up and give back space. This is something that could be done every 6 months or so.

It’s likely that other internet service providers lay on similar benefits to BT. It’s worth investigating this when considering swapping to a new provider and, certainly, before paying for space from IDrive, Google, Dropbox, and many other Cloud service providers.

Do you have Amazon Prime? If so, Amazon provides photo storage at no extra cost to your plan. All of your photos can be backed up to their cloud services. I really mean all – no capacity limit and it includes RAW and other common photo formats like JPEG. Just bear in mind that an alternative solution will need to be sought if Amazon Prime is no longer required.

Cloud solutions take your (important) data and transfer it and maintain it in a securely encrypted format on servers located all over the world. They back up their servers following their own DR strategy and processes so that data is never lost.

In my worst-case scenarios, at least the important data is preserved. However, it is worth remembering that I’ll need a means of accessing it. That’s the URLs, user IDs and passwords to access my accounts to view the data, assuming I have a device to do this from.

Hot tip to Synch Cloud Content

If you wanted to use a cloud service’s synchronisation features, one way of doing so without duplicating what you already have in storage is to use Symbolic Links (Windows 11). It will reference the folders to be synchronised to the cloud service. Sym Links act as though the data exists on a laptop drive, which is where many cloud solutions install their local source root folders. but is linked to any connected drive that is currently used for storage and as a working area.

For example, Dropbox sets up a directory of folders and sub-folders for what it needs. You can add more folders and sub-folders as you see fit. However, one of the folders you create could be a Sym Link that points to an existing storage area, maybe another physical drive, known to your Windows 11 laptop.

Dropbox typically installs the folders shown below onto the C drive of a Windows device, I have added a Sym Link, PHOTOS, which points to a D drive and folder names PHOTO-STORE. Any change I make in PHOTO-STORE is now seen by Dropbox and uploaded to their Cloud services.

DROPBOX
-Camera Uploads
-PHOTOS<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<Symbolic Link>>>>>>>>>>>>>>D:\PHOTO-STORE
-Private
-Public

Strategy to Photo Storage and Backup

By storing and backing up my photos and other data in this way, I have achieved…

• At least 3 copies of my data – camera, laptop, synched home backup and cloud services
• A minimum of 2 media types – various Disks and Cloud storage
• 1 copy of my most important data off-premises in the Cloud

This is commonly known as a 3 2 1 backup strategy.

Companies that are serious about DR will put the effort into testing it. Once upon-a-time, I did this for the company I was working for. As much as it was a big eye-opener, it costs a great deal of money. For the amateur photographer or small business, the tests should mainly be about…

• Accessing the copies of data
• Making sure that files can be opened
• Ensuring restores from backups actually work
• Keeping the software that produced the files up-to-date.

Thanks for reading this guide. I hope it has been insightful for you. Drop me a line below to discuss this further.