![Win 1 of 3 My Cloud Mirror 2 Hard Drives With A Single Comment - $300 Value [UPDATED]](https://cdn.fstoppers.com/styles/large-16-9/s3/lead/2016/04/wd_hard_drive_for_photographers_0_jpg.webp)
The winners of the contest have been chosen. Congratulations to:
Joshua Jeppesen
Hector Reyes
Ian Johns
We will be in touch with you via your Fstoppers messaging system to receive your prize! Thank you to everyone who participated.
One of the most important aspects of our work as photographers is the storage of our photos and videos. Not only do our businesses regularly depend on our images and videos remaining safe until final delivery, many of us keep years of personal memories backed up for safe keeping. A few weeks ago, our own Alex Cooke wrote a review on one of the most dependable ways to back up what's important to you, the new My Cloud Mirror 2. As a follow up to his article, Fstoppers and WD would like make sure you have the option to keep your back ups secure by giving away three My Cloud Mirror 2 units. Check out the details below.
When it comes to backing up files, all of us place importance on different things. I personally have hundreds of thousands of wedding images I've taken for clients over the years stored on multiple hard drives. The story of these images show my progress as a photographer, and also guarantee that in a dire situation, my clients can retain access to their pictures. Outside of my business, I place the most value on the many travel pictures I've taken in over a dozen countries with my wife. These are some of my most treasured moments and memories in my life. I love to look back on them from time to time to remember the many rich life experiences we've shared together.
What are the most important items you store digitally? Fstoppers and WD would like to hear from you and give you the chance to safely store the precious aspects of your lives with a new 4TB My Cloud Mirror (Gen 2).
To be eligible to receive one of the three giveaway units, simply leave a comment below this article describing the most important items you back up. Fstoppers will randomly select three winners from the comments to receive a 4TB My Cloud Mirror (Gen 2). For a full list of sweepstakes rules and eligibility, click HERE.
I take photos and GoPro videos of all the adventures my 8-year-old son and I go on. I need a reliable option of storage for all these memories so I can have them to remember forever, especially to show him when he's older.
Yay! I'm number 1.. The most important thing for me to back up are the photos and videos of my children. I have photos from birth till now..A LOT of photos and videos which could NEVER be replaced if lost! Thanks for the opportunity to make these memories last a lifetime with this amazing MiCloud Mirror 2. 4TB WOW that is perfect!
The most important would be photos of my family, followed by photos of my travels.
One of the most important things I back up besides photos from paid clients is photos from my childhood that I have gone through and scanned in, cropped and color corrected. That was just in case there is every a fire or flood or something drastic like that, I have digital copies of all the photos.
For nearly twenty years, I've been taking photos of graveyards, cemeteries, and mausolea. During that time, many of these places have degraded due to vandalism, weather, or management decisions (decisions to tear down a decrepit chapel, remove a fence, widen a road may make sense for business or safety reasons but they destroy history). My photos are often the only record of how a monument once looked - they have an importance to future historians, not just to me.
Over 10 years of photographs. More and more get added every day.
RAW files, that's the most important for me to back-up. The edits.....I can have them anytime form the Raws.
I have every photo and video I've shot over the last decade organized over a few hard drives. I've backed most of it up on the cloud, but I want to get it all in one spot. This hard drive would definitely help!
The most important photos I have to back up are of my kids. 4 under the age of 6...so yes, a lot of memories. Plus all "emergency" files in case anything happens to either me or the Mrs.
I used to think my nature photos were the most important photos I had. All that changed when my baby was born and the photos of her began to stack up!
My most important is 10+ years of sports photography, along with family photos (taken & scanned) spanning longer than that.
Music collection is a close second...
In all my travels the most important thing to me is making sure I back up my photos. They're little slices of time that can never be reproduced, each unique and personal to me. They may never hang in some famous art gallery or museum but if I were to ever lose them... I'd lose a piece of myself.
Lots and lots of photos from all my travels and paid gigs. I have quite a bit of video as well.
Time Machine backups and tons of photos. The WD My Cloud Mirror 2 seems like a great way to peace of mind!
Photos and hi-res music.
For me the most important things are my family photos and captures scanned from really old pics. I take double backup for each and everything. I did end up loosing a lot of memories at one point and it scares the hell out of me. I cannot afford those priceless moments ever to be gone. Along with the pics, I also keep some important documents (scanned copies) for easier access. A 4TB mirrored drive will be the perfect addition to ever growing collection of my kid and family pics.
The most important things that I back up are long-term projects. I often find myself juggling multiple personal projects that can last for months or years before completion and being able to have a reliable way to know that these images and videos will still exist in the years to come is incredibly important.
I back up everything I create - photos, documents, spreadsheets, tax returns...big fast storage is very important, this would help a lot.
As a new father with a 1-year-old son, photos of him are now my most prized digital possession. Yes, I have thousands of photos of trips and of architectural photography, but moments with my wife and quickly-growing son are priceless. I compile all of my DSLR and mobile photos onto one local drive on my PC, back those up to 4TB external drive (lots of room - planning ahead!) and then back all of that up to the cloud with Backblaze.
However, what I know I badly lack is a way to access all of these photos when I'm not at my home PC, which is also an intuitive method to share photos with my son's grandparents. I want to be able to pull up old photos on my phone from the cloud to see them anywhere. I've tried Lyve, but the Seagate external I have isn't recognized as a Lyve Drive (even though it shipped with Lyve on it?!), but in my research I always come back to the WD drives and their mobile apps - those seem to be the ones to use. I just haven't had the ability to pick one up yet.
I'm a freelancer 3D artist and photograher. 3D stuff take HUGE amount of space and I have no choice to back it up. I can't afford to loose anything during a project, some of those files represent sometimes 6 + months of work if I loose it.
The original files. I always do redundant backups on those. You can redo an edit but you can't always recreate the RAW.
As a wedding photographer I place great importance in the emotional and sentimental value of photographs. What is my most treasured images that get backed up HDD after HDD? the digital scans i made of my parents album. If you have the chance of reading my bio on my website you will understand how important this is for me and every since I made the digital copy I have always had a copy in every single one of my HDD I use to store my work. I have close to 14 HDD of backed up work and in every single one of them there is a copy of it and one in my current HDD together with recent work. Every now and then i open it and gather thoughts, inspiration, memories from those images plus it is almost guaranteed i can find a copy quick and fast when i need it :P
I think I'll be the most original commenter to this competition on this popular photography website. To answer your question, the most important items I back up are my photos.
Unfortunately, I'm not eligible to enter the competition because I don't live in North America.
Outside of my family pictures, my celebrity photos. I've shot many legendary performers, some who have passed away.
For me the most important files are photo's of my daughter. You don't send these files to a client, so when they are gone there are no full res .jpg's on some other computer. But, I would hate to loose wedding photos too, especially before they are send to the bride and groom, photographers nightmare. This 4T My Cloud Mirror looks amazing, I would love the fill it up with RAW files.
Photos for my portfolio and all the family trips. Always on the lookout for a good way to keep the GBs and TBs safe
The most important things I store digitally are my photos, especially the ones I shot during the proposal to my girlfriend.
Lets face it backing up data isn't the sexy part of our creative industries..do it now! I REPEAT - DO IT NOW.!!
As well as backing up your images, create back-ups of your whole computer OS system just in case of CATASTROPHIC COMPUTER FAILURE. Really it does happen so be prepared, you'll thank me for it one day. Also keep a copy of your work OFFSITE or in the CLOUD just in case of fire or theft.
I back up thousands of GB's worth of client footage. I edit off of a MacBook Pro, so I'm backing up every day
Pictures of my grandma from when I first started getting into photography are the prized pictures.
Other than that, my milky way photography collection, and the portfolio pictures i've done for models just starting in the industry.
All of my photos would go on this sucker. I have a ton of images of my 16-month-old I need to get backed up too and haven't yet. 1 TB mobile drives only do so much.
I am beginning a new project to digitize all of our family photos. Considering the number of brothers, sisters and cousins I have, this will entail a few thousand photos and negatives. I can't think of anything more important to keep safe for our children.
In really bad at doing multiple back ups and in afraid I going to lose wedding photos one of these days. I need something that will make it easier for me to back up my files.
Just started doing real estate photography this year. More storage is crucial for backing up all the houses I photograph!
I will store a bunch of weird stuff my kids do for when they are older they can remember the kind of stuff they did when they where younger. like now I can pick up a dusty both from storage and see pictures and look at report cards and weird stuff people do when they are young and forget about it.
The most important files I back up document my mothers battle with two year battle with ALS. Sadly, she never got the chance to become a grandmother, so these files must endure until such time her grandchildren can know their grandmother.
While my photos of past projects are immensely valuable to me, its the photos of my family that I care about the most--alongside the 5000 slides of my grandfather's four decades of traveling in South America. I work hard to make sure I have redundancy in backups for all of those.
I think it's important to back up all the data on my drives...but backing up wedding and portrait client images is vital.
The most important items I store are my photos and my source code.
The most important things I back up are the photos of my family and the memories those photos hold.
I would save there all my work which is now just on a single hdd and that hdd is about to die :)
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My RAW files, my Photos files on my main hard-drive and my Documents file. Unbelievably important!
The most important thing that I'm back up are all the pictures of my son playing sports. He has created so many memories and had so many great experiences through playing sports that it would be a tragedy to ever lose these images.
Definitely have to back up the archive of my family photos (I've been scanning old photographs) and also photos from my travels are very important to me.
Photos. I back up lots and lots of photos. I am regularly backing up images I've photographed. You never know when you'll need to resend or reprint an image.
Old family photos and travel adventure photos
The most important thing for me to backup is my video production files. Having a cloud base solution that I am in control of would be amazing! It would also be great to use with my personal files such as video and music library. I like owning my music, rather than using Apple Music or Spotify. Pick Me! :D
The most valuable things I can save on an hard drive is the photo and videos of my newborn son. Precious pictures of precious moments :-)
My life is full of images that span over half a century. I have lost many but I still take pictures so very often to keep my memories alive so that my children and grand children will see the world through my eyes