Back Up and Archive

An old printed photo is often precious because it’s the only copy that exists. You may be able to make a new print from a negative, but what if the negative no longer exists? If the prints and negatives are accidentally thrown away or damaged, that particular image is gone.

In the digital age, that type of scarcity isn’t as much of a problem. You can easily make hundreds of digital copies of a photo, transmit it around the world with a click, or send the image file to a drugstore and have inexpensive prints made.

And yet, digital photos suffer from a different type of scarcity: no matter how easily they can be reproduced, bits are fragile in a way that paper or film isn’t. One drive failure can wipe out your photos—all of ...

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