The Best Photography Backup Workflow as a Photographer
Nothing is more important to a photographer than their photos; especially if they are a professional. Those who make their livelihood from photography understand that to loose their photos could mean the end of their career. Over the years I have had many conversations with professionals and amateurs through social media and you would be surprised how few people actually know how to properly back up their images.
From my experience, most people think that to back up their images is to offload their files onto a hard drive and that’s it! But what happens if there is a fire or your hard drive is damaged or stolen? Even if you have your files on both your computer and on your hard drive, a natural disaster, fire, or burglar could end your career and your photos could be lost forever.
In this article, I plan to share all the best options available to photographers to back up their images in a safe and secure way as well as my own personal workflow.
It All Starts in-Camera
Properly backing up your photos as a photographer starts with you camera. Most modern cameras have two card slots with the option for one of the cards to back up the main card or be used as overflow, in the case one card is full. With how inexpensive memory is, there is no reason to not use your secondary card slot as a backup instead of overflow. Not once in my decade of capturing images have I ever needed overflow as I always make sure to offload my images and back them up after every job or outing. If you do not already, make sure that your second card slot is backing up your main card. You’ll thank me at some point in your career.
It is also important to make sure that you use good memory cards in your camera. My personal favorites are those made by SanDisk; more specifically, the SanDisk Extreme PRO CFexpress Card Type B, SanDisk Extreme PRO SDXC UHS-I Card (my go-to SD card), and SanDisk Extreme microSDXC UHS-I Memory Card (micro-SD card for drones) which have never failed me or become corrupted to date even after pumping hundreds of thousands of images through them. There are faster cards on the market but I have never ran into buffer issues with images or video and so I would suggest sticking to these less expensive options unless you are a full time videographer capturing 4K RAW footage or a sports photographer who sprays and prays like a madman. IF you meet those criteria and feel you need the extra speed, I’d recommend keeping the same CFexpress card but upgrading any SD cards to the SanDisk Extreme PRO SDXC UHS-II Memory Card.
The Best Backup Options
There are a lot of options out there to back up your images. When considering your options, there are a few things I would encourage you to keep in mind. The first thing is that, at a minimum, you want to always have two copies of every image file you have. If you have two copies, then the other things you want to consider are theft and natural disasters (including house fires). That being said, here are the best options available to back up your files:
Syncing two external hard drives using software (JBOD)
At a minimum, you should always be using two external hard drives to store and back up your files. In technical terms, this would be called just a bunch of disks or “JBOD”, Though it is the most simple form of backing up files, is a great starting point. My favorite hard drives are the WD 5TB Elements Portable HDD, External Hard Drive, USB 3.0 for PC & Mac though if speed is a concern then you can always decide to purchase SSD’s which are much faster. A great option for an SSD drive would be the SanDisk 4TB Extreme Portable SSD. Though these drives have been rumored to have issues every now and then, if you are properly backing up your files, it should not be an issue (and corruption is rare anyway if you are careful with your drives). I would personally never get a hard drive smaller than 4TB as the storage at or above that price point is cheaper.
When using two drives, one of the hard drives will be your master drive and one will be the backup drive. After importing your photos to your computer, you will want to export the image files to your master hard drive and then use software to sync that master hard drive with your backup hard drive. My favorite software to do this (and the one I use almost daily) is Goodsync. I have done extensive research on the best ways to sync two drives and this has by far been the best solution for me. Goodsync costs $29.95 a year and is worth every penny.
As mentioned, at a minimum, I would always choose to sync my files between two hard drives. This will protect you from things like corruption, accidental drops, and loosing your hard drive on accident (believe me, I’ve heard some stories through the years..). However, it will NOT protect you from theft or natural disaster. Thus, I would consider some of the other options below.
Network Attached Storage “NAS”
If you want to step up your JBOD setup to a professional-grade backup system, you will want to look into buying a NAS. A NAS setup is one that takes files from your computer and puts them on an array of hard drives via your internet and then automatically creates backups between hard drives in a redundant array of independent disks or “RAID”. The key to this system is that you MUST have good internet upload and download speeds so that your files can be accessed and used without much delay. If you have access to fiber or good upload speeds, a NAS is the best option for you. I would strongly recommend using a RAID 4 setup which requires a minimum of 3 drives. The best NAS brand is Synology and their Synology 4 bay NAS DiskStation DS418 ($699.00 on Amazon) is my top recommendation. For that device, I would recommend buying Seagate IronWolf 12TB NAS Internal Hard Drives ($199.00 on Amazon). The 12 TB options are the best bang for your buck and will give you 36TB of total storage running RAID 4. I personally do not have the luxury of good upload speeds (I have a measly 6MB/s upload - Xfinity sucks) but if I did, I would use this option for sure. That being said, the up-front cost of this setup is $1,500 which may not appeal to everyone. If you wait for Black Friday or Cyber Monday deals, you can often times find these items at a discount though.
Cloud Storage
If you have access to good internet upload speeds, cloud storage can be a fantastic option for backing up your files online. The best option for online storage that I have found is through Backblaze. Backblaze not only has online storage but, if you loose your hard drive(s) for any reason and you do not want to wait to download your files or deal with the organization of doing so, you can have Backblaze send you a hard drive with all your files on it (at a cost of course - but still an amazing option that can save a ton of time). By using this option, you will have your files backed up perfectly and will avoid loss through both theft and natural disaster as well.
Home / Office Safe
Now, if you are like me and don’t have great upload speeds or already own a fire rated safe, using a safe to store your backup drives can be a fantastic option. When choosing a safe, it is important to keep in mind the fire rating you will need to keep your hard drives safe in the case of a fire. It is good to do some research beforehand. The safe does not have to be large but it does need a good fire rating and to be bolted down if it is smaller so that theft is not possible. That way you are safe from both natural disasters and theft.
My Top Recommendations
Now that all the options are laid out, I want to give you my advice for the best combinations given your unique situation.
1) The best option hands down IF you have good internet and can afford it, is to buy a NAS and cloud storage to back up your NAS. This will protect you from anything that could possibly happen and everything will be 100% automated.
2) The second best option if you have good internet but do not want to pay for a NAS is utilizing JBOD backups and cloud storage for those drives.
3) If you do not have good internet then I’d recommend JBOD and a fireproof safe (which will fully protect you from theft or natural disasters). However, safes can be a bit pricey and so the next option is best for those wanting to save the most money.
4) Lastly if you do not have a fire-rated safe or do not wish to buy one, then I would keep your backup drive in a separate spot from your master drive which will most likely protect you from theft but not a natural disaster or house fire. It is not the most ideal but still a decent option.
My Backup Workflow
Now that you have a good idea of the best options and ways to back up your own files, I want to share my personal backup workflow after importing my images onto my computer.
When importing my images, I always leave my master card in my camera and download the images from my backup so as to limit the corruptibility of the master card. For me, my master card is my CFexpress card and my backup is my SD card. If you have a CFepress or XQD card in your camera, I’d recommend making those your master card slot and try to remove it as little as possible because those types of cards are the least likely to become corrupted (SD cards are the most common to fail).
After pulling the images off of my camera’s backup SD card, I create smart previews of the images so that I can cull and edit the previews which load much faster and are easier to work with that the original image files. After this process, I attach my master external hard drive and drag the folder from my Lightroom catalog to the hard drive to export the master files. Once the images are exported onto the hard drive, I plug in my backup external hard drive and sync the drives using Goodsync.
Goodsync will sync the files from your master hard drive to your backup hard drive and correct any deleted or added files to make the hard drives identical, leaving you with two copies of every image file. If you only export your images to one hard drive without syncing it with another drive, you still only have one copy of your image files on the hard drive and smart previews on your computer which means your images are at risk.
After my hard drives are synced, I lock up my backup hard drive in my office safe that is fire rated for 120 minutes and weighs over 1,000 lbs.+ (my hard drives aren’t the only thing I store in there…). This means that IF there was a fire, my hard drives would be protected for up to 120 minutes in temperatures up to 1200 °F. Considering I work 5 minutes from a fire station, is is unlikely my office would go that long without being taken care of; but it is still good to have peace of mind. I’d also like to see a burglar try and carry away a safe that is 1000 lbs. +.
Final thoughts
If you back up your photos correctly and use a good workflow, you will never have to worry about loosing your photos. As a business owner, failing to back up your images correctly can spell the end of your business and as a hobbyist, the last thing you want is to loose your prized photos you have captured over the years.
I hope this article proved useful to you. If you liked my recommendations, feel free to leave a comment below. Also feel free to let me know what you use to backup your images or any advice you have for others that you have found helpful. As always, thank you for reading along and feel free to check out more articles on my blog!
This article contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase via one of these links, I will receive commission at no additional cost to you. As always, thank you for your support!
The Best Photography Backup Workflow as a Photographer
Written by: Zach Nichols
Updated Jan 20, 2023
© Zach Nichols Photography