Gear I use.

I use a lot of gear.  Cameras, lenses, cards, strobes, grip, computer, and countless other essentials.  However, one of the least glamorous, most important, but often neglected pieces of equipment, are, hard drives.  I use two different types of external drives, desktop (office) and portable (location/travel).  Recently I bought another portable HD for use while on location or the road.  Before I get into specifics, I want to talk about the idea behind buying HDs.  BACK-UP YOUR WORK!  Yes, that's right I'm shouting.  It amazes me how many photographers don't adequately back up their work.  There is absolutely no excuse not to.  It is easy, and inexpensive, relatively speaking, to back-up your information and pictures.  The downside to not doing it, is potentially, losing all of your digital files.  I use a combination of HDs and offsite server back-ups.

My primary method for back-ups are HDs.  I am using Photoshelter for some of my selects, but I haven't yet found an affordable option for large amounts of online storage.  The drive I recently bought is a Lacie 1 TB, Rugged drive.  You can buy them here.  They are designed to be shockproof, I don't advise testing it though.  When I travel I use 3 external HDs. two for storage of my photos, and one which is a bootable back-up of my MacBook Pro.  The final aspect of my travel back-up plan is to carry one HD with my photos in my carry-on lap-top bag, and the bootable back-up and other HD with photos in my checked baggage.  Now, before you label me a lunatic for putting HDs in the hands of the gorillas that are sometimes referred to as baggage handlers, hear me out.  I put the two checked HDs in a Pelican case which fits two portable HDs and cables perfectly.  These cases are damn near indestructible and it allows me another layer of redundancy and protection.  This way, if either of my bags gets delayed, lost or stolen, I will be still be in business.

This system is simple, reasonably inexpensive, and works for me.  If you have any thoughts or recommendations, drop a line in the comments.