Historian™ software is a desktop program to organize and edit your photos within a secure cabinet (or vault). It is recommended to protect your memories by having a backup plan in the event of a computer or drive failure, or when moving to a new computer. There are several different methods available to back up your Historian cabinet, but please note that one method of backup is never enough!
IMPORTANT: Backup files should be stored on a separate drive from the one that you use for storing files from Historian. This means if you have your main cabinet stored on the computer, your backup(s) should be on an external hard drive (or vice versa). If your computer has 2 internal hard drives, it is NOT recommended to only have your backups on the second drive, this is because if the computer is lost/stolen/damaged you lose your only copies of these memories.
Below is a full list of options with pros and cons to every method listed. Overall, experts recommend the 3-2-1 method: 3 copies of anything you deeply care about, 2 different formats, 1 off-site backup. This means you don’t need to choose between backup methods – you should choose several different methods!
Shadow Copy
Advantages
- It’s automatic – once you set it up, it will back up
- It runs in the background without needing any input from you
- It is an exact copy of your original cabinet
- It is easy to restore if needed
- Historian will warn you if your Shadow Copy is not up to date
Disadvantages
- It must be connected to your computer to work, therefore is vulnerable to the same disasters that can befall your original cabinet – fire, theft, viruses etc.
- It requires an external hard drive to be connected to the computer at all times (see the IMPORTANT note above)
- If the hard drive is disconnected the shadow will stop and needs to be restarted.
- It is only a current backup. In other words, if you realize you accidentally deleted some images, they will also be deleted on the shadow and can’t be recovered that way.
CLICK HERE for steps on how to set up a Shadow Copy for your Historian.
Full Backup
Advantages
- It is an exact copy of your original cabinet on the date it is created; if you create multiple full backups then you can go back to a past backup if you need to restore deleted images
- It is easy to restore if needed
- Historian can tell you how many images require backup, and the backup status of any given image
Disadvantages
- It is a manual process and should be performed regularly, so it's easy to forget to do it
- It is time-consuming as it must back up everything
CLICK HERE for steps on how to create a Full Backup for your Historian.
Incremental Backup
Advantages
- Incremental backups are the same as a Full Backup, except they only back up the images that have been added or changed since the last backup
- It is quicker to do an Incremental rather than a Full Backup
- It requires less disc space than multiple Full Backups
Disadvantages
- It is a manual process and should be performed regularly, so it's easy to forget to do it
- Restoring from Incremental Backups is more time-consuming and requires multiple steps
- It is still time-consuming to do the backups themselves, especially if you curate a lot of memories
Cloud Backup
This refers to online backup services such as Carbonite, Crashplan, BackBlaze, and others of a similar nature that back up computer files as a while. This is not including OneDrive, Dropbox, Facebook, Flickr, or other photo-sharing sites (which are good for sharing photos, but NOT for backing up).
Advantages
- It’s automatic - once it is set up, it typically requires very little or no input
- It’s usually cheap
- It runs in the background while you work on other things
- It can also back up the rest of your computer at the same time (NOTE: If you use Artisan® we suggest pausing any cloud backup system while designing in the software)
Disadvantages
- It costs money, usually an ongoing subscription
- You need to be online for it to work, so if you have limited internet that can be a problem
- If the company you use fails, you could potentially lose everything
- Online backups are potentially vulnerable to security breaches
FOREVER Permanent Storage®
Advantages
- FOREVER® is, without doubt, the safest method of storing your most important images long-term as no other cloud-based service has the promise of the FOREVER® Guarantee Fund
- You can directly upload and download photos between your account and program seamlessly, keeping all edited information
Disadvantages
- There is a cost involved to get storage, but you can choose the amount you wish to pay for and whether to pay it all upfront or across 24 installments
- Must be connected to the internet in order to up/download from your account
- Not an automatic process
Remember: Computers fail, hard drives fail, memory cards fail, websites fail... backing up is simply not optional, so we encourage you to do it as soon, as often, as in as many ways as possible.