Yes, it is a HDD (hard disk drive) so if the hard drive fails, you will lose your photos (short of paying a service to open up your device and make an attempt to extract the image/files off of it which can be expensive). Note that SanDisk sells a service "add-on" called "Mirror It" when you register your ibi (located under DO MORE in the App) which allows you purchase a subscription to a separate Cloud back-up of your ibi data for $ per month (or year). More importantly, I discovered that if the SanDisk SERVERS are ever unavailable (either they go offline temporarily OR if SanDisk/Western Digital decides to discontinue the ibi service, then the way that they currently restrict the software, you will LOSE ALL ACCESS to your files -- even though they are still resident on the HDD inside of the ibi device! This is because you must first log into your SanDisk account (using their servers) as an intermediary, which then talks to your ibi. There is currently NO DIRECT ACCESS that I can find... This learning, to me, was an eye-opener and very disappointing -- I am considering returning the 2 units that I purchased because of this.