Shutterbug Portraits (Children’s Photographer in Los Alamitos) Recommends Backing Up Your Photos to a Reliable External Drive.

Hopefully the day will never come, but chances are your computer will be infected by a virus.  In some cases your computer will recover just fine, however most computers will need to be fully restored back to the factory settings.  To translate, everything on your hard drive will be erased and the operating system will be reinstalled.  Most computer repair companies will try to recover your information, but it will cost you.

I recommend you do one of two things:

1.  Backup your files (including pictures) to an external drive.  You can set the external drive to automatically backup all of the new information stored from that week (you choose how often).  Once setup, the external drive should communicate directly with your computer without your involvement.  I do recommend spot checking to make sure the drive is updating as you have scheduled it to.

2.  Save all of your files and pictures directly on the external drive.  These files never end up on your computer and are less likely to get infected from a virus.

Regardless which option us choose, you should use an external drive.  I recently purchased this external drive from Amazon and wanted to share it with you.   I purchased this on Monday (6/27) for $69 and today it is $59.  Amazon’s prices vary from day-to-day (I just happened to get the wrong end of the stick!).  It is VERY simple to install.  Westen Digital is a dependable name brand and I now own 3 of their external hard drives and have NEVER had a problem (knock on wood).

• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.9 x 1.4 inches ; 2.2 pounds

From the Manufacturer