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SJD2011

SJD2011

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Name
Sam
Edit My Images
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Hi all,

Really daft question, but how does everyone store their images? I save mine to my hard drive, but find I have to periodically delete a lot as they take up loads of space.

I am thinking of getting an external hard drive just for my photos, but wondered what everyone else does or if anyone had any advice (other than taking fewer but better photos LOL!!)
 
I have an external hard drive where i keep most stuff. If i take family pics etc which i know i will keep, i tend to back them up to cd as well.
I thought your blog was quite good. :thumbs:
 
I'm looking to purchase one of these in January. Does anyone have any website links to a good deal?
 
Hard drive prices are through the roof at the moment with all the flooding in Thailand.

I'd say its worth holding on if you can and buying when they are back to normal
 
You could copy them up onto DVD but DVD's have a limited life. The External hard drive is probably a better and easier option. I'd also recommend a second hard drive as a a back up as hard drives can and do fail.
 
intel86 said:
Lovely, interesting blog you have
Click to expand...

Aw, thank you too. (blushing)


Thank you all for the advice, I think an external hard drive is the only way to go. Thanks for the tip about backing up to another drive too, something I hadnt considered.

Look out January sales........ LOL!!
 
DVD doesnt have a limited life persay (well they do but it can be up to 100 years depending on brand and quality), but it is very vunerable to poor storage conditions and can rot with the wrong handling.

blu-ray is documented to have a similar lifespan but is not vunerable to environmental issues due to different contruction.

remember hard drives also have an average lifespan (mean time between failure, like a shutter does) so its all swings and roundabouts really.

personally id favour multiple hard drives, and if you can store a copy away from the main site (i.e. drawer at work, parents house etc) in case the worst should happen to your home.
 
I have a second 1TB internal hard disk which enables a quick backup method and then I have another external NAS (networked) 2TB drive for yet another copy but also means I can see the files on any other PC in the house.

So I have 3 copies of everything.... and I still worry!
 
OK here goes..........

I have pretty much everything stored on my laptop (500GB) but that's only got about 50-60Gb free space left........

I have a 320Gb portable HD which has a similar amount of space left.......

I have two 1TB external HDDs with round 500Gb empty space between them and full sets (including RAW files) of my images on each of the drives. (These drives also contain reasonable sized music/movie folders)

My backup routine is as follows:

Everything gets dumped on to my laptop, I delete the images I know are useless right away. I then edit and export to JPEG (resized to 150KB per image for Facebook/Internet use and/or a max filesize of 3-4Mb for images I give to friends/family for their use)

Once I've finished editing/exporting I use a compare program (think it's call Beyond Compare3) to copy/backup everything to my 320Gb portable drive.

Then every month(ish) I use the compare program to sync my 320Gb drive with both 1TB drives so I've pretty much got everything backed up in 4 places.

My plans for the new year include getting a 3-4TB NAS device and use one of the external drives as an off-site back up.

Note that I'm not a professional photographer....... These are pictures taken of/for friends/family with no commercial value but I'd be absolutely gutted if I lose any of them.

The way I see it, a few hundred quid on another storage device is peace of mind :)
 
I have them all on 2 hard drives, 1 internal (1Tb) and 1 external (640Gb) and also back up to Blu-Ray discs. Got some single layer discs at the mo but am going to get some dual layer discs after xmas. Should be able to get around 8-10 thousand images on each dual layer disc and they have a much better life than dvd's and not affected by magnetic fields.
 
I use lacie external hard drives 1tb.
 
kopite1979 said:
I'm looking to purchase one of these in January. Does anyone have any website links to a good deal?
Click to expand...

I've been sniffing around for a second external HDD
presently have a 320GB Samsung ...cost about 35£ IIRC

NOW all the 500GB HDD are 90+ as suppliers are using the Indonesia/Japan disasters as an excuse to rack up their margins [ so I'm told..:shrug:]

my local IT supplier told me just this morning to wait a few months
 
I've just picked up 2 x 2tb internal drives for less than 140 delivered, so they are coming back down in price if you're going to go with the standard hdd and caddy route.

I'm adding mine to a drobo unit to act as a primary back up.
 
Yardbent said:
I've been sniffing around for a second external HDD
presently have a 320GB Samsung ...cost about 35£ IIRC

NOW all the 500GB HDD are 90+ as suppliers are using the Indonesia/Japan disasters as an excuse to rack up their margins [ so I'm told..:shrug:]

my local IT supplier told me just this morning to wait a few months
Click to expand...

Check out Maplins http://www.maplin.co.uk/500gb-portable-external-hard-drive-611477 according to their blurb they have large stocks of HDDs so not affected by the shortage :)
 
Cautionary tale: I have a friend who kept her photos on an external drive. One day she knocked it off the table and lost everything. :(

Personally I use an 2TB external drive, kept in a fireproof safe. Plus another copy at work. And the few best shots get uploaded to online storage.
 
gridlock said:
Cautionary tale: I have a friend who kept her photos on an external drive. One day she knocked it off the table and lost everything. :(..............e.
Click to expand...


what happened to the originals on the PC..?

if deleted - then she actually didn't ''have'' a back-up at all........:shake:
 
ATM i dont shoot RAW...may change in 2012

my folder 'images since 2009' is only 5GB

dont see i need another 320GB HDD....£60

are there any tech reasons against long term storage/write/rewrite to a say 16GB Flash drive..@£16

thanks

john
 
Copy on the pc, copy on dedicated 2tb internal hard drive, 2 copies on separate 2tb hard drives inside home server, offsite 2tb copy in fireproof safe updated weekly.

Saying that I bought the drives before the price boom. Seriously considering getting an a network attached drobo to replace the server though.
 
I am just a noob but here what I have to save my photos:

Download to PC (immediate)
make copies to another 500 GB internal drive (immediate)
make copies to another 1TB external hard drive (immediate)
make copies to a tape drive (yep I still use those :-) ) - Timed weekly
make copies to DVD - timed monthly

my next purchase probably a NAS drive.


cheers
 
hard drive prices are slowly coming back down now, the 2tb samsungs that i normally got last were £75 then went up to £160 and my colleague bought some from novatech last week for £75 again.

ive posted it before in one of the many other threads by my current storage:

main working storage - Synology DS1010+ 5 bay (5x 2tb RAID5 = 7.15tb)
local backup copy - Icybox Dual Bay (2x 2tb RAID0 = 3.7tb)
off site backup copy - Combination of mobile external USB HD and Blu-Ray

note - local backup is RAID0 purely for space and convinience reasons and it doesnt need to be 100% foolproof as the chances of that and the RAID5 having a file deleted or failing at the same are minimal. in which case id have to go off site and get my other backup. at NO point should RAID0 be used as a main storage drive. kthxbai.
 
I have a dedicated hard drive in my PC for my photography and videos, which is automatically backed up to a NAS box I have in the loft, which contains two drives running RAID1 so I have 3 layers of contingency.
 
ohara said:
which is automatically backed up to a NAS box I have in the loft, which contains two drives running RAID1 so I have 3 layers of contingency.
Click to expand...

always treat RAID as 1 copy, even mirroring. think of it this way if the file is deleted or corrupted its gone. if the NAS unit goes belly up and trashes the array then its gone.

you only have 2 layers of contignency (which is enough for most people).
 
I use an external for my backups but its only 320g as not much to back up at the moment.
 
Just bought myself a NAS box to keep all the original files on as the files are getting to be stupidly big. Any really special files are put onto another hard drive.

The catalog is on the local machine with a backup on the NAS. When the NAS drives are full (1TB) I'll pull them out, store and start over.

I'm quite happy to have the NAS device itself as a single point of failure, I can't think of a failure that would cause it to trash the discs :thinking:
 
dhracer said:
I'm quite happy to have the NAS device itself as a single point of failure, I can't think of a failure that would cause it to trash the discs :thinking:
Click to expand...

wouldnt be unheard of for an array controller to write corrupt data all over the attached disks.

believe me ive had a few all nighters restoring an entire business server environment.. lol
 
I wouldnt know where to start! I would like to have a bit more backup than what i have got. Just another external HD and Synctoy enough to keep backups?
 
intel86 said:
I wouldnt know where to start! I would like to have a bit more backup than what i have got. Just another external HD and Synctoy enough to keep backups?
Click to expand...

yup, thatd do the job :)

depends on the NAS too, some higher end stuff has USB ports in the rear to attach USB hard drives and can manage their own backups.
 
dhracer said:
Just bought myself a NAS box to keep all the original files on as the files are getting to be stupidly big. Any really special files are put onto another hard drive.

The catalog is on the local machine with a backup on the NAS. When the NAS drives are full (1TB) I'll pull them out, store and start over.

I'm quite happy to have the NAS device itself as a single point of failure, I can't think of a failure that would cause it to trash the discs :thinking:
Click to expand...

What NAS did you go for?
 
I've got a readynas duo which is pretty good.

2x bays so have 2 2TB drives in working in RAID and you can also back up to a drive connected with USB to take off site.

Off top of my head it was about £100 for the NAS and then your drive prices on top (which as neil_g and someone else pointed out are returning back to normal prices again)
 
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