Everyone needs to back up your photos as computers and hard drives do fail. Your backups will give you and your client peace of mind knowing your image will be safe no matter what happens to your computer or software.
The basic backup method is 3-2-1: 3 copies of the data, in 2 types of storage, with 1 copy off-site.
3 Copies The first copy is the computer you used for the shoot. Then you back it up to two external harddrives, giving you three copies total.
2 Types Of Storage You can fulfill this by using SSDs and regular hard drives for your backups. Also, cloud storage works too.
1 Copy Off-Site At the end of shoot day, make sure at least one of the hard drives is in a separate bag from the laptop. Put one copy in the camera bag, and one copy in the laptop bag. For everyday backups, most people now are using cloud storage as their off-site backup. Dropbox works well for me. Keeping copies in different locations is a great practice.
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https://www.format.com/magazine/resources/photography/best-external-hard-drive
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The best way to backup throughout your shoot or during post-production is with backup software. If you don’t have backup software, you can always just drag the whole shoot folder over to the backup hard drives via the finder at the end of the day. But, backup software is very cheap, saves a lot of time and can be automated. If you have a digi tech on set, they will do backups throughout the day.
Most people use Chronosync. It is Mac only. I recommend learning this one as you will come across it frequently. The basic features are super easy to use and it’s only $50.
https://www.econtechnologies.com/chronosync/overview.html
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Tip: Use event triggers to start backups automatically when you plug in the hard drive. This is very handy when backing up during post-production or if you a juggling multiple drives during a shoot.
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At the end of the shoot, you’ll do one last backup to ensure everything is secure. If you are using Chronosync to backup throughout, it will be very fast. If you are just dragging and dropping, it may take awhile, depending how much you shot. After the backups are finished, double check the drives to make sure everything was copied. When teching, I open the info window for the folder on each hard drive and take a screenshot of the matching gigabytes to show the copies were successful.
Keep the hard drives in separate bags when leaving. Many times the client, or agency, will bring their own hard drives. This makes it easier to keep the drives in separate locations. If you are taking all the drives yourself, make sure at least one of the hard drives is in a separate bag from the laptop. Put one copy in the camera bag, and one copy in the laptop bag. This is especially important in transit. So many people make this mistake.
When you get home, you can upload it to the cloud or to your master backup, if you have one. Sometimes you can upload to the cloud during the shoot, but it can be slow depending on your service (ie Dropbox caps upload speeds). Uploading during the shoot always sounds great but is more complicated than it appears.
Not everyone likes cloud storage, but I think it’s cheap enough for most photographers to use. In some ways, your data is significantly more secure with cloud storage providers than your own laptop. They are doing way more redundancy backups than you are and no one will ever lose a server farm.
These days cloud storage is cheap enough to store photos, even raws. I’ve tried a lot of different ones, I use Dropbox because of how it smoothly interacts with Finder on Macs, but other cloud storage options work.
If you have a separate office or studio, keep one copy at home, as well as at the studio. Also, keeping drives at a friend’s or family’s house works well. Some photographers even use safe deposit boxes at banks. But, I think that is now more expensive than cloud storage. Fire-proof safes are great for storing drives to protect from accidents.