Drive nearly full

Janice

Janice

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Janice
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I have two hard drives on my pc... c & d. each is 120gb
I use D for storing all my photos and music and for running photoshop.

it is now nearly full up. i also have a western digital mybook external drive 250gb for backing up the photos and music.

If the d drive gets full Im buggered really arent I, as I have to keep all the photos and music in 2 places. they are on the external, but thats not good enough alone... they have to be on both for safety's sake. so when D is full, what do i do then?

Probably an obvious question, but the answer is escaping me today! :shrug: :bang:
 
LadyLens said:
Back up to DVD's, always, even with a couple of drives running, they do fail!!
Click to expand...

This is true. I find this problematic though.

I store all my stuff on a 250gb external. I used to back up onto DVD all the time but recently I got a bit lax with it. When I eventually got around to it I found that I had 60gb to backup - that's like 14 dvds. Ridiculous.

I don't think DVDs are an ideal solution for digital media storage anymore, especially since people regularly carry around 4gig plus in memory cards. DVD's only have a limited lifespan too, and they do get scratched and damaged, just as HDD's do.

Ultimately, i'm looking at something like the Drobo but until I can afford it i'm going to stick to external hard disks and pray.
 
yes ino, DVD's arent perfect and you do have to do it regularly, but unless you can afford online storage, its better than nothing - just keep them in a safe place, unused unless a HD does fail, its better than just relying on a mechanical device. ;)
 
Janice - new hard drives are (relatively) cheap and are very easy to fit. I recently got a new 500gb one and I can see filling it one day, but not for a while :) I also got a 500gb External to run as a backup and kept my old 250gb for just running windows and other software. Seems to do the job :)

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=494552 - Thats the new one I purchased - £67 aint too bad in my books.

Becarefull as there are different types of Hard drives and you need to get one you computer is able to access.
 
I dont think I would trust online storage with anything important. All you are using then is someone elses hard drive with others peoples junk in it!!
 
SW4peter said:
It would be nice to have a good value online storage space where it's a reasonable price to back to 200Gig of data wouldn't it?
Click to expand...

You can get that much space reasonably cheaply. My webhost was offering 275gb when I signed up, for about 4 quid a month. I can't imagine how long it would take to upload a memory card full of pics though :eek:.
 
If you really need that much data on your main drive, i would be tempted to buy a new 400gb internal hard drive, then partition the drive so that C: is for windows essential files and programmes. Then use something like Norton ghost to copy all your data across. If you leave as is eventually windows will start to crash and you risk losing data anyway!
 
the idea of 50gb bd dvd to use for backups as well as a drive is quite appealing to me, when the price comes down a little more...
 
HHRC-Photography said:
If you really need that much data on your main drive, i would be tempted to buy a new 400gb internal hard drive, then partition the drive so that C: is for windows essential files and programmes. Then use something like Norton ghost to copy all your data across. If you leave as is eventually windows will start to crash and you risk losing data anyway!
Click to expand...

well as is......there isnt much on the windows drive (C) its the d drive which is nearly full of photos and music.
 
does your computer has USB2 or firewire? if so, then there should be no reasons why a USB external drive (which you can buy upto 4TB budget permitting) should cause you any problems. I have a 500GB external hard drives as my puter only has 80gb hard drive (internal) and i have no probs storing all my photos, music and anything else i may have, runs quick and frees up the internal drive meaning quicker load up/shut down times!
 
Janice

If you really want to exploit full failsafe you are either talking serious money or alternatively you could buy another desktop (without all the peripheral stuff really) load it up with disks and a LAN card, set the new one up as a server with just the basics on (less software less to go wrong type principle) and install something like a light RAID or disk mirroring package, that way your stuff will be spread across multiple disks and also be recoverable via the raid. a lot of Linux systems come with RAID type recovery and if you never have used Linux then something easy to use like SuSe dektop is ideal. Nothing is completely failproff unless you got shed loads of cash (suggest overdrive on the sensor cleaning service might fund this :) ) but thats about it. The NAS drives you can get are are normally lightweight linux distros but if you wanna do it proper then do it in a proper server. just a thought
 
HHRC-Photography said:
does your computer has USB2 or firewire? if so, then there should be no reasons why a USB external drive (which you can buy upto 4TB budget permitting) should cause you any problems. I have a 500GB external hard drives as my puter only has 80gb hard drive (internal) and i have no probs storing all my photos, music and anything else i may have, runs quick and frees up the internal drive meaning quicker load up/shut down times!
Click to expand...

i have a firewire version of the 250gb western digital mybook, it doesnt cause me problems but if i store the photos ONLY on there then i could lose the lot...so i keep them on d drive too which is the one that is nearlly full (120gb)

i guess the way to go is another mybook and store photos and music on BOTH ...leaving my hard drive D free.
 
or if there old photos that are archived it would be cheaper to make hard copies on dvd. you can buy 50 dvds for £10 from play.com which is 235gb
 
Using Lightroom doesnt seem to help much. It makes a copy of every photo you send to Photoshop... so if you import 50 off a card, you get 100 after lightroom work.

Id like to go back to just using CS2 but for some reason Adobe Bridge still doesnt work and it wont show any thumbnails at all, neither raw, tiff, or jpg.
So I have no idea what Im doing without thumbnails.
 
Not to hijack the thread, but is there a deal of difference between lightroom and bridge? ive just got a copy of lightroom to try, but have been using brodge/cs2 for about a year with no problems.

So far, it seems lightroom is more ram hungry!
 
Silly question but didn't see compression listed anywhere. If you compress your old files using somthing like winzip/winrar you'll get lots more space.

As other people have mentioned as disks are rather cheap I would suggest getting another drive either external or internal (whichever floats your boat) and use compression for older not frequently accessed files.
 
HHRC-Photography said:
Not to hijack the thread, but is there a deal of difference between lightroom and bridge? ive just got a copy of lightroom to try, but have been using brodge/cs2 for about a year with no problems.

So far, it seems lightroom is more ram hungry!
Click to expand...

Bridge is just there to look for your files before you open in photoshop.

Lightoom actually processes the picture as Adobe Camera Raw does...and has various cataloguing capabilities. I love it......but dont like having to accommodate twice the photo room.
 
Janice said:
Id like to go back to just using CS2 but for some reason Adobe Bridge still doesnt work and it wont show any thumbnails at all, neither raw, tiff, or jpg.
So I have no idea what Im doing without thumbnails.
Click to expand...
I had a similar problem but only with RAW files, apparently you have to delete bridges cache from within the preferences and get it to read them all in again. Not sure if it will sort your problem but worked for me. might be worth a try.

As for the hard drive problem, just copy all the data of your D drive onto the external drive, open up the machine, replace the D with a 500gb drive and copy all the data back again... Its not as hard as you think, even if you have never touched the insides before. Im sure I can make you some notes.
 
"As for the hard drive problem, just copy all the data of your D drive onto the external drive, open up the machine, replace the D with a 500gb drive and copy all the data back again... Its not as hard as you think, even if you have never touched the insides before. Im sure I can make you some notes."

That would be interesting to know how.....i was in a similar situation to Janice recently and bought a 400gb external drive. Although not very techy, I was able to partition it and use it for my RAW files and backup for what's on the computer.

Although not a great solution, i tend to copy the shots i' desperate to keep on the d drive of my pc as a raw file, and the vast majority on the external. It does mean that I don't have those backed up, so increasing my main hard drives c+d to 500gb would be the best way to go and backup everything on the external.
 
I dont have any problem opening up the pc...I put in RAM and PCI cards and suchlike for friends all the time.

Just wondered if I needed to keep all the photos all on the pc as well as an external...but I think i either do........or get an extra external and keep them on both!! :eek:
 
Jas said:
"so increasing my main hard drives c+d to 500gb would be the best way to go and backup everything on the external.
Click to expand...

Replacing or installing a D drive is relatively easy, replacing the c drive can be a little bit more taxing :help: .

The C drive normally stores all your vital windows and program information and unless you want to reinstall your machine from scratch (which normally is a last resort for me) you have to use a drive cloning/resizing program like norton ghost or drive image.

Whereas the D drive is just normally a slave drive or in most cases is not even installed and the PC has just a single HDD and CD/DVD Drive as a D drive.

But if you need me to write a tut on changing your drives over just drop me a PM and I will put something together for you.

Scott
 
Archive your data on DVD's BUT DO MARK THEM PROPERLY!!!

Failure to do so will result in lots of:bang: :bang: :bang: when you have to view 20 odd discs to get that one shot you took back in March of last year!

:lol:
 
I find CD/DVDs an absulute pain in the proverbial to be honest.

But it also seems a bit stupid having 2 identical external drives sitting next to each other ... both with identical things on in case one fails!! It would leave my D drive nice and free though! But free for what?

Ah..a dedicated porn drive! :naughty: :D :lol:

I'd have to rename it Drive P !!
 
Its not really cost effective anymore to use dvd's (taking into account cost of materiasl and time) and its just a pain in the asre. why not use Iview in conjunction with hard drives, that way you can catalogue your photos and know exactly which drive they are on too.

Storage is the biggest single pain for photographers. i had to invest in an xserve to keep track of all the images.

take a look at the sonnet range of storage i set one up for a client, and he was well happy. I have setup numerous storage solutions for people and the sonnet range is very flexible in what you can do with it.

the sonnet has 5 drive bays with hot swappable trays, so you can swap drives out in a few minutes. he had a drives for

RAW Original
TIFF Layered
TIFF Ready to print
BACKUP of RAW original, TIFF layred, TIFF ready to print
SCRATCH DISC

how it worked was

from the memory card he copied the RAWs to the "RAW Original" dirve in a date / place named folder and on import they were name changed and metadata added, then keyworded in bridge and rated. when finished they were backed up to the "BACKUP" disc.
He then worked on the TIFF and backed up in the same way.
and every night he updated an IView catalogue for every disc.

So when the discs are full you remove them and store them, by the nature of the time needed to fill the discs the files become non current so chances of needing a removed disc is quite slim but if it is you just replace it.

he also made another backup of the backup to keep off site.

folder structures were as follows.

RAW original - disc
20071230_RAW_HOLIDAYS
20071231_RAW_PARTY

TIFF layered - disc
20071230_TIFF-LAY_HOLIDAYS
20071231_TIFF-LAY_PARTY

TIFF ready to print - disc
20071230_TIFF-RTP_HOLIDAYS
20071231_TIFF-RTP_PARTY

BACKUP - disc
20071230_HOILDAYS
- 20071230_RAW_HOLIDAYS
- 20071230_TIFF-LAY_HOLIDAYS
- 20071230_TIFF-RTP_HOLIDAYS
20071231_PARTY
- 20071231_RAW_PARTY
- 20071231_TIFF-LAY_PARTY
- 20071231_TIFF-RTP_PARTY

This is not meant to be hard and fast just showing how it could be done, the guy whos system it is thinks its fantastic as his workflow is now approx 60% quicker and his data is safer and easier to get too.

just my 2 cents worth.

Mark
 
CScottMcQueen said:
Replacing or installing a D drive is relatively easy, replacing the c drive can be a little bit more taxing :help: .

But if you need me to write a tut on changing your drives over just drop me a PM and I will put something together for you.

Scott
Click to expand...

Aw! don't pm. Why don't you start a new thread under Tutorials etc. I have been following this thread and taking notes on the different ways peeps store their images and files. I would like to follow a tutorial on how to change or add drives etc. thanks.
 
Gilly B said:
I have been following this thread and taking notes on the different ways peeps store their images and files.
Click to expand...

So you have decided to get a new drive and call it P drive and store all your porn on it like me then, Gilly :D :lol: :woot: !!!
 
Gilly B said:
Aw! don't pm. Why don't you start a new thread under Tutorials etc. I have been following this thread and taking notes on the different ways peeps store their images and files. I would like to follow a tutorial on how to change or add drives etc. thanks.
Click to expand...

Ok but you will have to give me a few days to put something together work is hectic, so please bear with me

S
 
Hmm, I wonder what sort of porn someone would keep on a drive pee?

Michael.
 
Then again a quick google search revealed ....

Upgrade tutorial

This has all you need to know

Hope this helps
 
LadyLens said:
Back up to DVD's, always, even with a couple of drives running, they do fail!!

But yes, I would get another external and back up D drive to there as well, then delete the bulk of pictures, which should free up a lot of space.
Click to expand...

We now no longer back-up to DVD as the Imperial War Museum has had instances of DVDs being corrupted in as little as 5 years after they were written. I have personal expereince of DVDs being unreadable only 6 months after being written - they were cheap disks issued to the military (and what we get is what we had to use...), now no longer used. Even with good-quality disks there's a risk though.

The new MoD policy is to have everything on external hard drives. As they approach filling up, we call the head office at HQ (Land) Command in Wilton. They send out a new drive. The full one then gets sent to them and the images copied onto the big servers there. The drive is then sent to the IWM and copied onto their database. The drive is then sent back to Land, wiped and stored for re-issue.
For work, I now have a 1Tb drive for archive/back-up and a 250Gb for routine storage (i.e. the one that'll get sent back when it's full...).

For my personal use, I now have three drives running - a 250Gb, a 400Gb and a new 500Gb drive bought last week. In September I'll get a 1Tb drive for archive/back-up. I'll never trust DVDs again as some of my personal work is on DVDs that are becoming unstable...I just last month copied a lot of stuff I shot about 5 years ago and two of the disks were unreadable - luckily I made 2 copies of everything, so the images weren't lost.
 
Janice said:
Ah..a dedicated porn drive! :naughty: :D :lol:

I'd have to rename it Drive P !!
Click to expand...

:lol: ... my drive 'P' is actually for Photographs believe it or not ... :shrug: ... I know ... how Predictable and boring ... :D

But on a serious note J ... are your Drives C & D on a single hard drive that is partitioned or a pair of physically separate drives ... :thinking: ... 'cos if they're separate I would opt for swapping out your D for something larger to cope with your now and future proofing requirements ... you are hardly going to require less space in weeks/months/years ahead after all ... :shrug:

Alternatively buy a larger external for day to day use and use the existing for purely back-up (compressed/zipped ?) files ... just a thought ... ;)






:p
 
surely all you need to do is copy everything on the D 120gb onto the external, fit a large say 300 to 500gb hdd in place of the 120gb and copy all the info back onto it from the external, then store the 120gb as a permanent backup and you then have a large internal drive with all your data and plenty of space and an external drive as a working backup.
 
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