Storing/saving pictures

[kylebybee]

<p>My wife and I are rapidly filling up memory on the computer. I've been told to store pic's on DVD disc, external hard drive, even paying for a subscription to an internet type of storage. What are some opinions as the best choice, and should someone have more than one.</p>

[jim_manganella]

<p>All of the above works. I prefer the external hard drive and for the more important photos I will also back them up to a CD or DVD. This works fine unless your house burns down then you wish you had internet storage... your decision.</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>More than one is a wise choice, in my opinion. Internet storage (services like Carbonite, Norton Online Backup and others) are a very safe choice, because they work like true backup programs, and they store all your files in a physically different location - so even if something truely bad happens, your files are safe and sound. The downsides are the costs (though not excessive) and the need to have a reasonably fast internet connection.<br>

I am not a big fan of DVDs - their capacity is limited, and the cheaper ones are frequently not very reliable, while the reliable ones are quite expensive. Writing is slow-ish. They scratch too easily. In short: yes, they work, but not the most practical for long term.<br>

External hard disks are relatively cheap and large, and you can easily disconnect them and store them safely away from the PC. I'd surely recommend getting at least an external hard disk.</p>

<p>Mind you - this is to discuss BACKUP copies. If your internal hard disks are getting too full, upgrade the internal hard disk if possible. Else, get 2 external hard drives. But be sure to have at least 2 copies of each file that is important to you. Freeing space on your internal storage by copying it to 1 external HDD or 1 DVD does nothing to safeguard you against loss of files - so whichever direction you head: make sure everything is present twice.<br>

The ideal setup: files on the internal hard disk, back-ups to an external hard disk and an online service. This way, you have quick and easy access to your backup files on the external HDD, as well as the safer (but slower) online backup.</p>

<p>For managing backups on external hard disk, I use and can recommend Microsoft SyncToy. It's free, and easy to use.</p>

[David_Cavan]

<p>What Wouter says makes a lot of sense. Just one additional thing I do, and that is keep one of your external hard drives off-site, somewhere. It could be at the office, or I've even seen them in a safety-deposit box. And rotate that copy regularly, so you've got a relatively recent copy in a safe place. That's to mitigate the home-catastrophe, such as a house-fire, earthquake, even a burglary where everything is trashed. </p>

<p>I'm becoming more interested in cloud solutions, but I'm still concerned about the stability of some of the providers, and the long-term issue of on-going payments, not to mention what happens if someone else screws up my photos and I don't have anyway to get them back.</p>

[zensphoto]

<p>I have two 1TB drives I am using this year, they are mirrored. I use bamboo sync and when I write to one it writes to the other at the same time. At the end of the year I burn out Blueray 50GB Double layered DVD's with the whole year on it. Takes about 12 50GB Blueray discs to back up this years 500GB+ of stored RAW's and Proofs. </p>

<p>What you are doing is about the way to go. You could buy drives they are actually pretty cheap these days. The 1TB, 1.5, and 2TB drives are very well priced for the holidays already. Or just get started on DVD's so you can clear out some of that space. I know people love to have hot storage access but sometimes cold storage is just as good and priced better. If you have any questions just let me know, I have all kinds of ideas. </p>

<p>I used to be a Sr. Mid-Range systems guy for 12 year for FedEx.</p>

[kerry_grim]

My hard drive just about filled up so I bought an external drive which I now consider to be my main drive. I

now download photos to the computer on a folder on the desktop, rename them, delete bad ones, and

copy to the main hard drive and two Western Digital My Book Essential hard drives. It would be best to

keep one of them off-site. There is probably more a chance it will be stolen than a fire. This is basic, simple and works for me, however everyones needs are a bit different.

 

CD are not big enough to hold may files even if your files are jpegs. It is too easy to accumulate a lot of

CDs and difficult to find what you want.

 

Check the forum below which has a lot of information regarding DAM (Digital Asset Management)

http://thedambook.com/smf/index.php

[JDMvW]

<p>Terabyte external HDs are very inexpensive now*. Get two while you're at it, keep applications, etc. on the internal drive, and shove everything else over to the main external HD and a backup to the other (automatic or manual).</p>

<p>Having a full main internal HD may actually slow down some applications using the drives for scratch files, especially if your RAM is not large.</p>

<p>Nothing in this world is permanent, but HDs may actually outlive DVDs.</p>

<p>_______<br>

*a quick look at completed auctions on eBay shows some 1 TB drives selling for less than US$50. BIN prices are typically around a $100.</p>

[peter_sanders1]

<p>Remember that any backup scheme needs periodic testing. Verify that you can read the data off the CD, DVD, BlueRay, external HD, or Tape. </p>

[john_deerfield]

<p>A very strong "ditto" to JDM von Weinberg! Three hard drives: one for your OS and apps (this one you already have), another "main" hard drive with all of your media, and another hard drive to back everything up to. And, depending upon your risk tolerance levels, another hard drive that you back up to but keep off site. Perhaps you only back up to this one once a once, etc. Online storage services in my opinion, are a bit pricey. And out of the picture if you are shooting Raw. Someday, you might stumble onto a program that helps you manage your growing library of images (Elements Organizer, Lightroom, Apple's Aperture) and these programs have ways of creating back up libraries for you. Only these back up contain all your notes, ratings, tags, labels and so on of all of your images. Essentially, anything you have done within the program to organize your images.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I have two 1TB drives I am using this year, they are mirrored. I use bamboo sync and when I write to one it writes to the other at the same time</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Not a great idea. Using a second hard drive is a great idea, but I would NOT mirror them. A mirror is an exact copy of the original drive. Therefore, anything that goes wrong with the original drive is "copied" over to the 2nd drive. The ONLY thing a mirror drive protects you from is drive failure. It doesn't protect you from directory corruption, accidentally deleting a file, and so on and so forth. Meaning, if corruption occurs on the main drive, the mirrored drive simply copies the same corruption. Much better to simply use a program to back up the drive once/ day or week or month.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Remember that any backup scheme needs periodic testing. Verify that you can read the data off the CD, DVD, BlueRay, external HD, or Tape.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p> Which is another good reason to use hard drives!!! Verifying a box full of optical discs could take a very long time!</p>

 

[craig_shearman1]

<p>I use an external hard drive and also make copies onto DVD. Online backup would be a good addition, but I would not rely on it as my only backup because of both the ongoing cost and the risk that the company that is big this year will be ancient history five years from now and your "backup" will be gone with it.</p>

[kris-bochenek]

<p>I use 3 external drives all with the same things on them (copies of each other). one is always connected to the computer while others are off and unplugged. When I add new files I re connect the other drives and copy the same files to those as well. The folder lists are the same on all of them so that I can find the file I want without too many problems. Sounds like a PIA but I once had my computer and external drive fail at the same time and since then I use 3 of them.</p>

[kerry_grim]

Kris, this is exactly what I do also. It is not a PIA. It is a simple system and only requires back up hard

drives. Works for my 14K RAW files.

 

This system is simple and cheap and will work for most photographers. I am not saying the best. A lot of

people do have the knowledge or am willing to invest in the expense of more complicated systems. This is

a solution for backing up. I did not address archiving.

 

Backups are only one part of the workflow. No matter how backups, archives or work flow is done, a

system is needed that you are likely to continue doing.

[J.W. Wall]

<p>What Mac software, if any, do you recommend for syncing the three drives?</p>

[kylebybee]

<p>Seems that the majority of you use the HD storage option. That is the way I will go for now. One HD at a time as I'm not a techy person. In fact I get frustrated with my home theater system. Thanks for all the ideas.<br>

Kyle</p>

[mendel_leisk]

<p>I have a couple of internal drives used exclusively for raw files and scans, basically all the irreplaceables. Files are written to the first, and frequently I copy the first drive's content to the second drive.</p>

<p>I use a utility XXCopy to automate the process: whatever's on drive A get's copied to drive B, and whatever's been deleted from drive A also gets deleted from Drive B.</p>

<p>Then, more infrequently, whenever I've built up sufficient new files to fill a few DVDs, I'll do a burning session, make two discs of each, one stays at home and one I pass onto my son, basically so they're not both under the same roof.</p>

<p>Last but not least, I keep log files, both of the files on the internal hard drives, and the discs: which files are on which disc number.</p>

[AlanKlein]

<p>I used to burned two DVDs in case one failed , I'd have a backup. But then I kept both together and realized that if there was a fire, both would burn up.</p>

<p>Then I got to thinking about my film collection. I have around 10 35mm slide trays of 80 slides each. Do not ask the last time I viewed them on my slide projector. I did Scan two trays of them and then got tired of that. Then I thought, when I die, who is going to care about my photo collection? Are my pictures that great? (No one's bought any yet). Will my digital pictures saved on DVDs going to wind up like my slides? Who is going to look at thousands and thousands of so-so pictures after I die? I don't look at them any more. Why would anyone else?</p>

<p>Better that I print out a few family shots that's all relatives care about anyway. Then give them the pictures that they will save for me on their walls and furniture. Then archive the few really good shots if I must. The point is you can go crazy about this stuff. Pick out a simple approach and save only the decent stuff. Give away the rest now in print form.</p>