RAW images and drive space on PC

A

andya700

Suspended / Banned
Messages
6,071
Name
Andy
Edit My Images
No
I have all my images stored on my PC at the moment, and I am going to buy an external storage drive in the next couple of days.
At the moment, I have a 160gb hard drive with 4gb of RAM, and the hard drive is split into two parts - C and D.
The D drive is virtually empty, but I only have 18gb left on the C drive.
I loaded on GIMP last night and the whole thing froze, did not shut down properly, so this morning I uninstalled GIMP, and did a couple of proper shutdowns.
Is there any way I can use the D drive to store my images on, because I am sure that they are gobbling up space on my PC.

Thanks,

Andy
 
Open up two windows, one of your C drive and the other of your D drive.

Locate your pics on C and drag them onto D.




Hopefully this isn't a wind-up!
 
Mikesphotaes said:
Open up two windows, one of your C drive and the other of your D drive.

Locate your pics on C and drag them onto D.




Hopefully this isn't a wind-up!
Click to expand...

No wind up Mike, thanks. I thought that may be the answer, but could not believe it would be that simple.
Andy
 
Kerioak said:
If you can it might be an idea to buy two hard drives, dupicate them and store one "off site"
Click to expand...

Thanks Christine, I have just read an article, describing just that. Apparently, people are now worried about the lifespan of external hard drives, believing that they may only last around three years:(
The more that you read into storage, the more paranoid you can become.
I have now freed up some 15gb space on the C drive and it seems to be running a lot quicker and quieter, and the machine has been shutting down OK.
 
andy700 said:
Thanks Christine, I have just read an article, describing just that. Apparently, people are now worried about the lifespan of external hard drives, believing that they may only last around three years:(
The more that you read into storage, the more paranoid you can become.
I have now freed up some 15gb space on the C drive and it seems to be running a lot quicker and quieter, and the machine has been shutting down OK.
Click to expand...

I put everything onto a hard drive as soon as it's loaded on to a computer and I burn everything on to disc (discs last longer than a hard drive... even though it may be a b****r to reload thousands of discs). & whatever i'm working on at the time is also on my computer and I edit it from my computer (so the hard drive can stay off)

So far so good *toes crossed*.
 
If hard drives lasted only 3 years then a lot of people would be up in arms. I've got images going back over 6 years on external hard drives and they are still readable.

The life of CD/DVD's may be a bit more problematic. Having said that I had to use one that was over 5 years old and had no problem, but I wouldn't use them for long term storage,more of a belt and braces operation
 
They're too unpredictable and in my experience liable to be corrupted very easily. I will not trust storage especially for valuable files to cd/DVD again.
 
andy700 said:
I have all my images stored on my PC at the moment, and I am going to buy an external storage drive in the next couple of days.
At the moment, I have a 160gb hard drive with 4gb of RAM, and the hard drive is split into two parts - C and D.
The D drive is virtually empty, but I only have 18gb left on the C drive.
I loaded on GIMP last night and the whole thing froze, did not shut down properly, so this morning I uninstalled GIMP, and did a couple of proper shutdowns.
Is there any way I can use the D drive to store my images on, because I am sure that they are gobbling up space on my PC.

Thanks,

Andy
Click to expand...

To avoid problems like this, you should only keep Windows files on the C: drive, everything else on the D: drive. That way if windows goes t**t's up, you can reload/reinstall windows without affecting your D: drive (provided the physical drive is still ok), you may (will) have to relaod your editing software etc but your data on D: should be safe.
DO get an external backup drive(or 2) though, they are very cheap these days, better safe than sorry eh!.
 
The trouble with hard drives is they may last 20 years or 20 minutes, saying they are good for 3 years is like saying how long is a piece of string.

In the last 12 months or so I have personally had 2 fail totally and another start playing up, one was caused by a power outage which caused some corruption to the boot sector, another just decided to die and not work again, the third will still write but not read.

Whatever system you use you must have at least one back-up, I have been lucky, I had pretty much everything backed up so only lost unimportant stuff, yes it is a pain having to double back-up, but boy will you be glad you did when your drive goes belly up.
 
andy700 said:
Thanks Christine, I have just read an article, describing just that. Apparently, people are now worried about the lifespan of external hard drives, believing that they may only last around three years:(
The more that you read into storage, the more paranoid you can become.
I have now freed up some 15gb space on the C drive and it seems to be running a lot quicker and quieter, and the machine has been shutting down OK.
Click to expand...

The actual drive inside an external unit is identical to what you can put into a desktop/laptop so there's not really any reason why they should have a shorter life than the one spinning around in your computer right now.

I had a Packard Bell external hard drive connected to my Mac Mini which went kaput sometime last year, funnily enough, about 3-4 years into it's life. Someone I mentioned it too said that almost all of the time its the control unit which is the problem rather than the disk. On that basis, I bought a new USB caddy for about £20, took the drive out of the Packard Bell unit (which iirc was a Seagate drive) and put it in the new one and it's working fine.
 
Last edited:
m1pui said:
The actual drive inside an external unit is identical to what you can put into a desktop/laptop so there's not really any reason why they should have a shorter life than the one spinning around in your computer right now.

I had a Packard Bell external hard drive connected to my Mac Mini which went kaput sometime last year, funnily enough, about 3-4 years into it's life. Someone I mentioned it too said that almost all of the time its the control unit which is the problem rather than the disk. On that basis, I bought a new USB caddy for about £20, took the drive out of the Packard Bell unit (which iirc was a Seagate drive) and put it in the new one and it's working fine.
Click to expand...

I'm told thats not strictly true, the HD in a computer had a bigger space around it for heat to disapate and a cooling fan blowing air around, external drives often havent got fans and are subjected to more movement and knocks generally. As I understand it this can afect the life of the drive.
 
swanseamale47 said:
the HD in a computer had a bigger space around it for heat to disapate and a cooling fan blowing air around, external drives often havent got fans and are subjected to more movement and knocks generally. As I understand it this can afect the life of the drive.
Click to expand...

Both of those things certainly can affect drive life, as well as increasing the risk of sudden failure. You can now get cooled external drive cases, and although they are a bit bigger I think that's probably the way to go if it's critical data.
 
I dont know if you know this but HDDs have what are called landing spaces. These spaces are for when the computer shuts down and the read/write head has somewhere to go and not cuase any surface defects when the drive stops or starts spinning.

When an external shuts down the head doesnt move to the LA and therefore after time can cuase problems with the surface of the disc.

Ive fixed numerous HDDs in the last 15 years and most of the time its the electronic hardware thats strapped to the back of the HDD. Its and easy fix you find the same model HDD and swap over the circuit board. Plug in and get the data copied. Replace the CB on to the new drive and copy the data back.

One the rare occasion Ive actually swapped the platters over to a similar disc and retrievd the data. The two HDDs go in the bin after that excercise.
 
Dune said:
I dont know if you know this but HDDs have what are called landing spaces. These spaces are for when the computer shuts down and the read/write head has somewhere to go and not cuase any surface defects when the drive stops or starts spinning.

When an external shuts down the head doesnt move to the LA and therefore after time can cuase problems with the surface of the disc.
Click to expand...

Not quite sure what you mean here.....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top