Well, I guess I may have just put this solution to rest without typing more than one sentence in my title but I know some of you reading this may be curious as to why I'm calling you crazy, insane and loony. Ok, I have a few more choice words too but let's get on to the scoop regarding saving your images on your internal hard drive.

The problems that surround storing information on your computer are pretty simple, they're vulnerable to almost all of the offending problems that we face when trying to store digital media. Those problems include: permanence, reliability, portability, the ability to duplicate, system software malfunctions, external factors like electrical surges, fires, children, file eating viruses and your computer illiterate spouse just to name a few. With one quick power-surge from a thunderstorm your hard drive could be toast. With one flick of the delete button your files could be trashed. With one small malfunction, your hard drive could simply just die. There have even been extreme cases where computers burst into flame because they become over heated!

Even from this short list my message should be clear that your hard drive is meant for temporary storage only. It's very simple — Never, ever, ever leave your precious memories and creations on your hard drive for more than a few days without backing them up in some way. As in real life, death may just be around the corner. We all will probably live to see another day and it's a good bet that our computers will too but eventually the day will come for all of us when our computer dies. It's only common sense to go beyond storing your images on your local hard drive.

As I stated earlier, I was once among the trusting. I believed in technology. I thought that I would be safe from catastrophe and eventually my day came. I woke up one day and my hard drive was clicking and I couldn't start up my computer! I tried almost everything for two days until I reluctantly admitted defeat and took my computer in for service. Imagine yourself getting the news that your hard drive was fried, your images were lost and the only remote possibility was to find a duplicate working hard drive for parts. To date, they have been unable to locate a replacement and it's pretty safe to say that my images are gone unless I want to spend a bunch of money with another recovery company. This is my whole purpose for writing this series. To save you from my disappointment, anger and loss. If you save your images to your hard drive I am sad to say that your day will come. The day that your son or daughters first birthday images or that image that a client wants to pay $5000 for is just gone. Gone because you had faith in computer technology. Gone because you were too busy, too cheap, or just simply too lazy to back up your files somewhere other than your local hard drive.