Tips to Keep Holiday Memories Safe

More than at any other point in the year, the holiday season is a time for creating and preserving memories, particularly photos and videos. A new study* from Carbonite, a provider of online backup solutions for consumers and small and medium sized businesses, found photos are considered the most valuable files consumers have on their computers.

Despite the importance of these digital photos, many people may not be backing them up to protect them. In order to keep these most precious memories safe this holiday season, Carbonite offers the following tips:

• Download memories off of all your devices: The Carbonite study shows digital cameras remain the top device for taking photos, with 78 percent of those surveyed using them. However, cell phones or smartphones are increasingly being used by consumers (used by 59 percent). Two-thirds of people who take pictures with a phone simply leave the photos on the device without backing them up. Among camcorder users, half leave their videos on their device and do nothing else with them. During this busy season, it is easy to lose a phone—or drop it in the egg nog—and lose all the photos stored on its internal memory. A camcorder may be harder to misplace, but it can be just as easy to damage.

• Protect photos with more than just a disk drive: For those who use digital cameras, more than 80 percent move their photos from the camera to their computer. However, computers are subject to all sorts of problems—from corrupted files to damaged hard drives to theft—that can make holiday photos disappear forever. Photos that aren't protected may mean memories of this holiday season could end up as nothing more than mental images.

• Go to the cloud: A truly effective method of securing holiday photos is to back them up online. With an online backup service like Carbonite, consumers can simply and affordably transfer their holiday photos to their computers, where Carbonite will back them up automatically. Video footage can also be backed up easily with Carbonite.

"With the millions of priceless photographs that will be snapped this season, it's troublesome that so many families are not sufficiently protecting their holiday memories," said Carbonite CEO and Chairman David Friend. "For less than $5 a month, everyone can celebrate the holidays this year with unlimited, automated online backup of all the digital files on their computer—including photos—by Carbonite and access those files from anywhere at any time via the cloud."

Consumers interested in protecting their holiday photos can start a free 15-day trial of Carbonite by going to www.carbonite.com.

*Carbonite Personal Data Backup Study, November 2011

SOURCE Carbonite, Inc.