How to save my pictures, and a RAM question

[cliff_gallup]

I am belatedly getting into the world of digital photography (recently bought

a Nikon D200) and am a complete knave when it comes to computers.

 

I'd love any advice on how best to archive the pictures I have been saving to

my hard drive. I just ordered an external back-up hard drive, but would also

like to store pictures on discs. Should I use CDs or DVDs? What kind?

 

Also, am thinking about getting a new computer to replace my ancient one and

had been looking at a new iMac, but I am not sure about how much RAM I will

need to run programs like Nikon Capture or Apple Aperture or PS relative ly

quickly. Advice greatly appreciated.

 

Many thanks.

[will king]

If you'll be saving your photos has tiff 16 bit or 32 bit, you'll probably need a DVD burner. Either dvd-r or +r will do. Might even consider dual layer. YOu should get at least 2GB of ram, 4GB is ideal.

[cliff_gallup]

Can anyone recommend a reliable external CD/DVD burner so that I can save files to a DVD, and a reliable external hard drive? I have surfed the web in search of recommnedations for a hard drive, and they all seem to get lousy user reviews that indicate a high percentage of crashes.

[steve_bingham]

If you use CDs or DVDs, you MUST get the gold ones. They run close to a $1 each but are archival - 200 years. Normal CDs or DVDs are NOT.

 

Get a minimum of 2 gigs of ram. I have 4. Much more is pretty much overkill as PS CS2 can't use it.

[will king]

Cliff, for an external hard drive, I would go with the new Seagate 750GB hard drive. For an external DVD burner, I partial to the new HP lightscribes. Why go external? Internal parts are cheaper. Actually I would recommend going with 2 Seagate 750GB SATA drives and raid them. Buy a big case and get internal parts. Cheaper and less clutter.

[andreas_weber]

Cliff, there are no *reliable* storage media available, that's one main drawback of digital. The only way to achieve reliable storage is through redundancy - one main advantage of digital ist the abillity to make identical copies. Keep at least three copies of every file you want to last on different physical devices, and check the files for integrity every now and then (You don't want to overwrite you backups with corrupted "originals", do you.) I backup to two external harddisks (one of them is always in my desk at work) and burn DVDs whenever there are 4 GB new data.

 

Andreas

[steve_bingham]

I disagree. Archival is possible. You just need the right type of CD or DVD. However, I use a mirrored array AND an external hard drive.

 

"Tests have proven that MAM Gold CD-Rs can be relied on for 300 years of data and music storage. You'll find many different lengths and styles of these terrific MAM Gold CD-Rs at Cassette House. Each of these Gold CD-Rs uses patented (not to mention organic) Phthalocyanine dye. This special dye records rich, precise sound. The dye layer is the "active ingredient" in a CD-R; it's the layer in which information is recorded. Phthalocyanine dye is a superior dye which creates superior sound recording."

[andreas_weber]

> Tests have proven that MAM Gold CD-Rs can be relied on for 300 years of data and music storage.

 

What kind of "test"? They didn't even test them for 20 years, much less 300 years. "Accelerated" tests can't account for unknown failure modes.

 

> This special dye records rich, precise sound. ... Phthalocyanine dye is a superior dye which creates superior sound recording.

 

You honestly would trust someone who gives you this nonsense?!?

 

Don't get me wrong, these CD-Rs are far more stable than average, but archival they are not. Don't trust your only copy of important data to one single medium.

 

Andreas

[robert lee]

"how best to archive the pictures I have been saving to my hard drive"

 

Back up to external USB drives, redundantly to multiple drives if the images are important.

 

The whole issue with media archival characteristics is off point. A particular brand of DVD might be rated for 200 years, but you'll be hard pressed to find a usable DVD drive in 20.

 

An active maintenance program is the only guarantee of a digital archive's integrity. For the individual, this means transferring the data to the prevalent bulk storage media of the day, about every 5 years or so.

 

If you're really paranoid, output the images to Kodachrome for environmentally controlled dark storage (I'm only half-kidding.)

[cliff_gallup]

Thanks for the answers so far, and excuse the computer ignorance (and laziness), but can someone explain how you use two back-up hard drives or point me to a set of instructions that explain this? What plugs into what, and what synchs with what? The more I get into this the more confusing I find it -- I am seeing references to "fat32", "raiding" and "partitioning" and don't know what these things mean.

[robert lee]

"...can someone explain how you use two back-up hard drives"

 

I think you're reading too much into this; nothing complicated here:

 

1. Plug both USB drives into the computer. If you don't have these yet, simplest thing to do is to get two Western Digital 500GB "My Books" from Dell for about $200 each.

 

2. Drag & drop your folder of images to the first USB drive. Drag & drop the same folder to the second USB drive.

 

3. Depending how how many images you have, either go have a beer or come back in the morning.

 

4. When the copying finishes, disconnect one of the USB drives, and put it somewhere safe (i.e., not in the same room, building, state, country, etc.)

 

5. Repeat 1-4 whenever you start feeling uncomfortable about not having archived in awhile.

 

This should work well for you. It's possible to get quite sophisticated with data archiving, but those incremental gains in functionality will cost significantly in additional complexity.

[steve_bingham]

Here is a reasonable and relatively inexpensive solution - and one I recommend. http://www.pictureline.com/product.php?id=13427

 

Or . . .

 

Set up your computer with a mirrored raid array. You have two identical hard drives. EVERYTHING is recorded simultaneously on BOTH. If one fails, the other will be there. Then, back up all your photos on an external hard drive (that way it stays totally separate from any damage to your main computer - like a lightning hit! This is my setup but it is terribly anal.

[andreas_weber]

> Set up your computer with a mirrored raid array. You have two identical hard drives. EVERYTHING is recorded simultaneously on BOTH. If one fails, the other will be there.

 

If the data becomes corrupted (failing hardware, virus, user error ...), it does so on both disks. If you accidentially delete a file it will be gone from both disks. If your RAID controller dies the data on both disks might be gone. And so on ...

 

RAID doesn't substitute a backup and adds very little benefit for storage of digital photos. It adds complexity though ...

 

> Then, back up all your photos on an external hard drive ...

 

Alternate between *two* external drives, never having them both online at the same time. Using just one drive for backups will make both your originals and your *only* backup copy vulnerable during backup. Desaster knows just when to strike for maximum effect! (You know, Murphy was an optimist.)

 

Andreas

[david_jones16]

The key advantage of optical media is that it is cheap and easily available should you run

out of discs or storage space, also since the files can not be changed once the disc is

burnt, the chances of backing up corrupt files are nil, so long as you start with a known

good set. Hard disk based backup has the advantage of greatly increased capacities over

DVD/CD, and vastly improved speeds... which will be important if you want to maintain

regular backups of a large number of files. Personally I'd recommend using both methods.

ideally you should have a backup methodology which secures your original files against

changes (DVD), provides swift "live" backup of daily/weekly changes (2nd hard disk) and

enables you to take periodic offsite backups to guard against catastrophe such as theft or

fire etc. (DVD and small portable HD units are ideal for this).

 

If you want to take things to an extreme you should also consider backing up multiple

times in different file formats to protect against loss of proprietary file access in years to

come. One long term issue we all face with digital capture is the longevity of the file

format we use. Admittedly this is a long shot in most cases, but using something like

Adobe DNG (which I believe has been made open source) guards against not being able to

open your %camerabrandofchoice% RAW files in 20 years time. This is a lesson I learnt

from using MIDI sequencer applications when the vendor went belly up. Wish I'd had the

foresight to save my work in an open standard back then, since it would have saved me

months of work reconstructing the tracks on "modern" packages. But hey, you live and

learn :-)