How I Back Up and Organize My Photos
Now that I’ve been photographing for quite some time and have amassed a large collection of images, I’ve come to realize the importance of organizing and backing them up properly. Today’s topic is one that comes up often among photographers, and you’ll find plenty of videos on YouTube covering it. I’m not claiming to have the perfect system, in fact, I’m still figuring out what works best for me. But in the spirit of learning together, I’d like to share how I currently manage my photo storage. Hopefully, it will give you some ideas or inspiration whether to adopt or avoid!
Problem 1: Finding What You’re Looking For
Once you have thousands of photos, it becomes essential to store them in a way that makes retrieval fast and easy. No one wants to scroll endlessly through a long list of files or dig through dozens of folders; especially across multiple external drives. This is the first major challenge: creating a folder structure or system that keeps things accessible and tidy.
Problem 2: Making Sure You Don’t Lose Everything
The second big challenge is backing everything up. It’s one thing to store your photos safely, it’s another to make sure you don’t lose them if a drive fails, gets lost, or something else happens. That’s where external drives and cloud storage come in… but ironically, they can scatter your photos across multiple platforms all over again. The trick is finding a smart and synced setup that keeps your files safe and organized.
My Current Setup
Since I shoot in RAW, I edit almost all of my photos in Lightroom Classic. That requires some planning in terms of file structure and drive connections.
I currently use three levels of storage:
1. Main Photo Archive (Originals)
I start by importing all my RAW files from the camera to a 5TB LaCie Rugged external hard drive. This serves as my master archive where the originals live untouched.
2. Working Drive for Editing
Next, I copy the photos I want to edit onto a 2TB LaCie Mini Rugged drive. This is the drive I’ve connected to Lightroom Classic. I work exclusively from this drive when editing.
To avoid overwriting original files, I’m careful to manage my images through Collections in Lightroom and not by directly editing them in the folder view. Still, it makes me nervous sometimes, and I’ve learned to keep backups before editing, just in case Murphy’s Law strikes.
3. Cloud Backup
Finally, I synchronize the 5TB working drive with a cloud storage service. This gives me peace of mind, not just in case of physical damage or theft, but also for accessing files from other devices. Should you have some paranoid tendencies, like me, you might consider using a second cloud storage service or even setting up shared cloud storage with a friend (or a few). It’s a nice insurance policy and a good excuse to nerd out over gear together.
I won’t pretend my system is flawless, and I’m sure I’ll continue refining it. But this workflow gives me a good balance of accessibility, backup security, and creative flexibility.
If you have tips or questions on this topic, I’d love to hear them. Maybe together we’ll all reach that elusive heureka moment of the perfect back up system.
Until next time!