Technologies are now a huge part of our lives, and we even can say that it is as important as any other aspect of our existence. We need it to be a part of our everyday routines, and it is essential for our well-being, just like food, entertainment, or hobbies. Of course, with such a big amount of digital information in our lives, we’ve got a lot of personal digital photos, videos, and other files that took place in the regular family and personal archives.
Even though most of us feel confident about our relationships with gadgets, sometimes it can be not so obvious how to organize these files and create a proper amount of backups to save your digital archive forever. And don’t even get us started on converting video files from DVDs to computers: some of us still need to do that!
So, to help you with this task, we created this small guide that will help you make, manage and save your digital archive. Let’s take a look at it, shall we?
Let’s make your archive!
First of all, transfer every one of the digital files you want to save in the archive in one folder. Now you need to sort them depending on what this file is about: is it a document, a photo, or a video? Next, we recommend you organize your files in separate folders by themes. For example, it can be Work documents, 2019 Hawaii Vacation, Nana’s 70s Birthday, etc. Give names for every file to easily find it the next time.
And since you have already started organizing your personal archive, we suggest you take one step forward. We are sure that not all your photos were shot on a digital camera, so you need to scan old photos and use local services to convert your old family videos. These companies can restore any data from old VHS tapes and DVDs and give you a digital copy of it.
After getting digital copies, the next step will be choosing any video converter you want, downloading it, and converting the videos into the formats suitable for storing on different platforms.
The main reason you make an archive is for you to visit it from time to time, so to do that, you need to convert all the video and photo files into proper formats for every website or device you will be creating a backup on. If your video converter does not have all the formats you need, choose another video converter: we are lucky to live in an age when we have a plethora of options online!
The main folder with your digital archive will probably be saved on your personal computer, but having only one copy of such an important thing is just unreasonable. That’s why let’s move to the places where you can keep the backups of your archive to save and have it forever.
The first backup: portable drives
The first backup should be created on one of the portable drives of your choice. It can be a memory card, HDD or SSD. Really, here it is just a matter of what you already have or what you prefer spending money on.
Having another physical device with a copy of all your archives is the most convenient way to save your files and perform data recovery if needed.
Of course, these devices often become obsolete and break, so check your portable drives from time to time to ensure that your archive is okay.
The second backup: social media
You probably already have tons of photos posted on your social media pages for you and your friends to see. However, if you need a backup of your archive, you can create a separate account to make sort of a photo book online and add all the photos and videos you don’t want to lose. And, of course, make it private.
But, you must remember that this backup is probably not the safest one. Your chosen social media platform can be shut down one day, and all your precious photos will be gone. It happened to Myspace, Vine, and many other websites that looked solid, so do not make social media your main backup.
The third backup: cloud storages
Using cloud drives in 2021 became just a regular part of our lives! Everyone with Apple products uses iCloud for their backup data, and all Gmail users enjoy Google’s incredible free 15GB cloud storage!
What’s great about cloud drives is that information in these storages will be safe from breaking in thanks to two-step verification, and if you need more space, you can always get it! This is a very safe choice, and if you don’t have portable drives and do not want to purchase them, choose cloud storage as your main backup.
The fourth backup: video hostings
The last backup you can create is similar to social media, but in our opinion, it is a little bit safer. We talk about photo and video hosting services like Google Photos and YouTube. You can even spruce your videos and photos up there with fun thumbnails or digital picture frames.
These websites allow you to upload many files and make them private for only you to see. We think that hostings are better than social media because they just have more chances to stand the test of time. Such giants of the industry will not be closed any time soon, so if you think about another alternative for your digital archive backup, choose this!
Conclusion
Making and saving your digital archive is just as important in the modern-day and age as creating photo albums and painting portraits in previous centuries.
In addition to creating this archive, we strongly suggest you make as many backups as you can to be prepared for one day when all information on your computer will be lost. In this case, you will perform speedy data recovery and will not lose a thing.
So use our tips, and enjoy going back to your memories any time you want.
