how to save pics?

[deputydan1]

hey all..

just wondering..

what's the best way to save pics? a good friend told me to NOT trust it all to my hard drive...

so.....ext. hard drive? do these crash too?

what about dvd??

clueless on what to do....

just scared i might lose all my pics!

thanks!

-dan

 

[justleesa]

I DL all my pics to cd (due to lack of dvd burner) and use extensis portforlio to save thumbnails on my HD, can find them again easier that way.

 

[IslandHopper]

the easiest way would be an external HD (or even a second internal, set up to mirror the first - thus backing up eveything important). The odds of BOTH HardDrives failing at the same time is pretty astronomical.
CD or DVD would be my second choice (DVD holds way more) plus.... they're highly portable.

A program like Apple's "Backup" (or Dantz Retrospect, for those who haven't yet seen the light ) will allow you to run either scenario automatically.

 

[MikeC]

The odds of BOTH HardDrives failing at the same time is pretty astronomical.

Lightning strike, house fire, earthquake(depending on where you live), nasty virus, etc....

An off site backup, CD's or DVD's in the bank safe deposit box helps spread the risk. If the bank and your home get destroyed, who cares about the photos or other data, you are in a major world of hurt.

 

[Dee]

If on a trip I burn the originals on a CD immediately. Local stuff doesn't really matter if I lose them or not but if there's something I really want to keep, it goes to CD, too.

I try to remember to backup my photos to CD occasionally but I'm not really good about doing it! I use an online photo album so most of the good stuff is uploaded full size to there. That way If I have a major failure, I can recover them off that site.

 

[deputydan1]

wow.

all good ideas......thanks..

i think i will get a dvd ext. drive......they're pretty cheap now, and i wont get the risk of a HD crash...

thanks, everyone!
-dan

 

[SimonJ]

Personally i'm with Dee and back everything up to CD whilst away. When I get back I then burn two copies of everything, store one in my fireproof safe and the other one I send to my father to keep in his safe. I also upload everything do my website, where I have 800Mb storage for $9 a month. The files on the website are not the high quality ones that I store on CD though, but better than nothing. Am thinking that a DVD writer is a good investment as well, saves having to burn multiple disks.

 

[PapaBob]

One option yet to be discussed... My office uses a tape backup system. I installed one on the home computer. The tapes will hold 20meg which is a lot more than I have taken to date. Anyone tried one of those new memory sticks you plug into the usb port?


---Bob

 

[Taucher]

My rule of thumb, redundancy. One copy on each of two different hard drives on the same computer. If one HD fails, the other still has the info. If the computer crashes, the HD's can be removed and the info is still there. The third copy is kept on CD's.

 

[saholz]

Yes, it does happen. My 160gb hard drive became unreadable with almost no warning. This, on a 7 month old computer. I had a few hundred processed pictures stored and everything was lost. BUT....I had transferred the best of the pictures to CDs and also kept my CF cards with the original pictures. I usually keep the originals on the card until everything is safely stored elsewhere.

By all means, keep using your hard drive for processing and storage. You must also have a copy of any pictures you don't want to lose. Be safe..keep the originals on the card for a while and burn them on to a CD or DVD.

Stan