Blog
Writing on the archive, workflow, and AI.
Long-form posts on backup, AI search, and the realities of running a creative archive. Written by the team building Vault.
Hard drives are not a backup
Why a closet shelf of externals isn't a plan — with math, drive failure rates, and a recovery story you don't want to live through.
Computing SHA-256 in the browser without freezing the tab
How we hash multi-gigabyte RAW files in the browser during upload — streaming through Web Crypto, with no main-thread stalls — and why the obvious approach doesn't work.
The 3-2-1 rule, restated for 2025
The 3-2-1 backup rule is forty years old. It still works — but the way photographers should actually implement it in 2025 looks nothing like the way IBM described it in 1985.
The wedding photographer backup workflow we recommend
The exact card-to-archive workflow we recommend to wedding photographers, including the parts most photographers skip: when to verify, when to delete, and when to walk away from a venue.
Why we chose Backblaze B2 for the vault
A founder's-eye view of the storage vendor decision: S3 vs B2 vs R2 vs Wasabi, what the per-TB numbers actually look like at small scale, and why we picked Backblaze for the master copy.
What fixity actually means (and why we put it on the homepage)
Fixity is the boring word for the thing that decides whether your archive is real. Here's why we built it into the product instead of leaving it to the storage vendor.