sb67 Posted September 20, 2011 Share Posted September 20, 2011 I have got quite a few photos on my laptop now and was wondering how you guys store yours? Do you copy them and back them up or store them on USB's, not sure what to do with mine?I'm happy to leave them where they are but worried about anything happening to my laptop and losing them. I'd appreciate any advice. Steve. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold DaveF Posted September 20, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted September 20, 2011 I have many thousands of images on my PC, as soon as I add new images I copy them to two separate external hard drives, after every hundred or so I also make a copy on a DVD. Then I have another hard drive I archive everything to every month or so. I also have an indexing system - actually thumbnails with captions written on and an index by places referenced to the image file number. Just think - when I had slides I had the one slide and if it got lost or damaged that was it - gone! David Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold beast66606 Posted September 20, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted September 20, 2011 As Dave says make sure you have two drives, make them identical copies, I use NAS for simplicity but USB connected are fine Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium spamcan61 Posted September 20, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted September 20, 2011 Much the same as DaveF. Don't rely on optical media; over the weekend I found a whole batch of CD-Rs I burnt about 8 years ago that are unreadable, all the same manufacturer/brand (Maxell as it happens) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim V Posted September 20, 2011 Share Posted September 20, 2011 You have to get used to the idea that nothing digital is safe. As it's a laptop, it's very thieveable. I have film items from 50 odd years ago, still readable, but CDRs from 2 years ago unreadable. There has been a lot of correspondence on the forum about this, I would reiterate what the previous posters have said, you cannot have too many backup devices. Also, connect the backup when you need it, don't leave it running all the time. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silver Sidelines Posted September 20, 2011 Share Posted September 20, 2011 You could always upload them to Flickr or Photobucket? Otherwise you need a back up hard drive on a second machine or a standalone file store. Ray Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan_71D Posted September 21, 2011 Share Posted September 21, 2011 I wouldn't use sites such as Flickr to backup photos. I had all of mine on Fotopic and that dissapeared never to be seen again along with a number of pics that I have mo other copy of. In these unstable times you never know just how long their going to be around for? I would stick to running two hard drives in mirror format (either external or internal) then if one fails you still have the other. I run two Segate 1TB external hardrives together! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dolpher Posted September 21, 2011 Share Posted September 21, 2011 I agree with all of the above, but would recommend some form of 'off site' backup too. There are several online backup services that charge fees or you could upload to Flickr for free; or backup to a external hard drive and leave it at a friend's or relative's house. That way you won't lose everything if you suffer a fire or flood. This may sound extreme to some people but I feel that my family photos are my most precious possessions. Adrian Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy M Posted September 21, 2011 Share Posted September 21, 2011 Steve, As a photographer all my working life and having worked with digital media since the early nineties, this is the age old question that there is (as yet) no definative fail safe answer to. All of the posters above have made good valid suggestions and all I would add is that you should cover as many bases as is practical. There are only two types of hard drive, one that has gone wrong and one that will go wrong! That said and joking apart, a laptop is not a long term option and an internal PC/MAC hard drive is the most stable storage device backed up by mirroring your images onto a removable drive that is disconnected when not in use to transfer. As an extra measure don't be put off with backing up onto disc, sure no manufacturer will guarantee their product beyond 10 years but if your buy quality (not the 100 discs for £1.99 from Cheap As Chips Ltd) and treat the discs as you would your old vinyl records, you will be fine. A removable USB Stick or Compact Flash Card is also an option. Hope that is of help. Andy. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold beast66606 Posted September 21, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted September 21, 2011 As a photographer all my working life and having worked with digital media since the early nineties, this is the age old question that there is (as yet) no definative fail safe answer to. All of the posters above have made good valid suggestions and all I would add is that you should cover as many bases as is practical. I've been digital for 15 years now but I've been in IT, specifically with the health service, where backups are critical, there are no 100% fail safe (sensible) answers but modern hardware is pretty good so a degree of trust can be imparted on it. There are only two types of hard drive, one that has gone wrong and one that will go wrong! That said and joking apart, a laptop is not a long term option and an internal PC/MAC hard drive is the most stable storage device backed up by mirroring your images onto a removable drive that is disconnected when not in use to transfer. I would disagree, I've known drives work (and I mean work, not like a home PC) without issue for years, outliving the computer in which they were installed, the MTBF will statistically "get" some drives early and some drives late, powering on and off is the most stressful part of a drives life, but keeping it disconnected unless it's required means it's less likely to be attacked should a virus land. As an extra measure don't be put off with backing up onto disc, sure no manufacturer will guarantee their product beyond 10 years but if your buy quality (not the 100 discs for £1.99 from Cheap As Chips Ltd) and treat the discs as you would your old vinyl records, you will be fine. Assume you mean DVD/Optical, the best way to store them is in a case, sealed from the light and other "bodies" that can do damage - buy a cheap case and put the disks in there, in the dark they stand more chance of lasting for a long time.. A removable USB Stick or Compact Flash Card is also an option. I would NOT recommend this as an option - unless you don't like your files and want to lose them, the memory in these requires power every now and again to keep it live, putting them away for several years would - probably - mean an empty one when they were reloaded, and a backup is only any good if it can be read. They are also expensive when compared to disks --- For backups I use a NAS drive - Network Attached Storage - these can be configured to automatically mirror files onto 2 disks (I use 2 X 2TB), they monitor the disks and warn of impending issues and can be given security profiles to limit access - e.g. the kids only get read, not write. They are available to any PC which is on the home network, making backups easier if the files exist on more than one PC - I can expand if anyone wants more info. Do not use on line backups as your sole means of keeping things safe - if the firm goes bust, your data goes too, and photo sites are even worse - look at fotopic for example. Regards, Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium spamcan61 Posted September 21, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted September 21, 2011 Do not use on line backups as your sole means of keeping things safe - if the firm goes bust, your data goes too, and photo sites are even worse - look at fotopic for example. Regards, I've recently been uploading to a Microsoft Skydrive account as a last resort remote backup, it's a ballache to use (you can't upload folders, only files) but you get 25GB of storage for free, and I figure MS are unlikely to go bellyup or pull the plug on the service, as it is their way to get domestic punters into 'the cloud' way of doing things. https://login.live.com/login.srf?wa=wsignin1.0&rpsnv=11&ct=1316594475&rver=6.1.6206.0&wp=MBI_SSL_SHARED&wreply=https:%2F%2Fskydrive.live.com%2F&lc=2057&id=250206&mkt=en-GB&cbcxt=sky Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
47406 Posted September 21, 2011 Share Posted September 21, 2011 FWIW, Perspective from another IT guy... In terms of photos in digital file format, I have about 13 gigs of scanned images and about 150 gigs of pics taken on digital cameras - all in all, a little bit on the chunky size in terms of space All in all, I have 500 GB of stuff that I consider *worth* backing up. Unfortunately, I am way beyond what any online backup service can do for me, both in practical and cost terms ! For those who are in the realms of normality though (i.e. the 99% of PC users...), I can't recommend the idea of online backup service enough - having your data backed up somewhere that is beyond the reach of anything that can readily touch you (and your computer). What I do though, and as others have recommended here, is to either back up your important data to a second drive in the same computer, or a network-shared drive on another computer - or ideally both. I also have an old 500GB drive in an external enclosure at home and a 2TB external drive in my storage locker. I do burnable DVDs as a sort of unorganised on-a-whim-basis incremental backup, though as others have alluded to, I have found DVD-R and DVD+R media to be unreadable after time, though I've found out that the majority of those were due to being burned on a particular laptop with a burner that must have been slightly off-true in it's alignment. Having said that, I'd estimate though that about 5% of the media I've burned is just plain Unreadable now. Bottom line - your backups are a case of spending as much on the problem as you perceive your data is worth to you.... Funny thing though - most of us only discover how much our data is worth to us after we lose some.... Even with my precautions I still lost, irretrievably, a month's worth of digital pictures from my camera 2 years ago... <sigh> - back up tools and methods that you can Automate really do help ! Hope that helps some Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Trevellan Posted September 21, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted September 21, 2011 Lots of sound advice here, much of which I would wholeheartedly endorse. I have been obsessive about backing up data since I was a Local Area Network supervisor in my local government days. I use multiple external HDDs and these are replaced every 3 years or so, at which time the oldest is put into careful storage. I also back up new data to DVDs on a regular basis and these are stored equally carefully, much as Beast says above. I buy only top brand media and have so far had only one read error on a disc that was about 6 years old. I do use flash drives, but only to transfer data between platforms or provide short-term backups of important files. With around 53% of my extensive photographic collection now available in digital form (and growing) I regard this highly disciplined approach as absolutely essential. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sb67 Posted September 21, 2011 Author Share Posted September 21, 2011 Blimey, didn't realise that it could be so involved! I will get an external hard drive, I'll prob search online for one or go to pc world, anyone recomend any or any to avoid? Cheers. Steve. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold beast66606 Posted September 21, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted September 21, 2011 Blimey, didn't realise that it could be so involved! I will get an external hard drive, I'll prob search online for one or go to pc world, anyone recomend any or any to avoid? Cheers. Steve. Get two and make them identical ... Forget asking what's good and bad - there are polarised views for nearly every manufacturer but Seagate or Western Digital (almost) always come out good amongst the professionals. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AMJ Posted September 21, 2011 Share Posted September 21, 2011 Essentially comments from friends etc that (like me) work in IT say back them up/copy them onto different media types as mentioned by others. External HDD the suggestion is that you should open files on these periodically, Similarly check flash drives (USB sticks) and optical media (CD & DVD's). I backup to HDD's by using a simple DOS BAT file to copy new/changed stuff. One person I knew used to have an external HDD, and burn images onto 2 CD's. One went into a fire safe. An idea that I do is to have a small HTML file on each CD with a date and description of what the photo is. Learn simple HTML from a book or the web and you'll be surprised how easy it is to do. An other rule of thumb to make life easier finding stuff is be consistent in how you name the files. All my photos have the format as follows for the name yymmdd xxx where yymmdd is the date taken and xxx is an id for the date. Sorting by name in explorer means that they all appear in the proper date order rather than if the date was ddmmyy Unless you have your own website with loads of file space do not use the web as a backup media. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Trevellan Posted September 22, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted September 22, 2011 Forget asking what's good and bad - there are polarised views for nearly every manufacturer but Seagate or Western Digital (almost) always come out good amongst the professionals. Argos currently have some good deals on Seagate drives. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreenBR Posted September 22, 2011 Share Posted September 22, 2011 Much as everyone else is saying but i also give a copy of pics to my son to keep in his house. Using the asumpsion that 2 houses in seperate towns will not burn down at the same time. One further note do not use cheap optical media it is false economy. Regards Stephen Redfern Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium spamcan61 Posted September 22, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted September 22, 2011 Blimey, didn't realise that it could be so involved! I will get an external hard drive, I'll prob search online for one or go to pc world, anyone recomend any or any to avoid? Cheers. Steve. As beast says, opinions tend to be polarised, like cars really; I don't think there are any real clunkers like the old IBM deskdeathstars around these days. If you live near a big Tesco they've had some really cheap deals getting rid of old stock, 10 quid for a 1TB external HDD and suchlike. Slim chance of finding one though. Here's a couple of OK looking deals:- http://www.amazon.co...16679672&sr=1-3 http://www.amazon.co...16679672&sr=1-8 EDit: as Trevellan says, Argos have some deals, low cost per GB on this one:- http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/9254871/Trail/searchtext%3EEXTERNAL+USB+HARD+DRIVE.htm Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium spamcan61 Posted September 22, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted September 22, 2011 In terms of managing file backup/synchronisation there are loads of programs available, I use Syncback, which allows automatic scheduling and suchlike, even the free version has more functionality than I need:- http://www.2brightsparks.com/download-syncback.html Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold 30801 Posted September 22, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted September 22, 2011 Here's a couple of OK looking deals:- Consider getting a USB powered drive. Cost per GB is a bit higher and capacities are lower, but there's less faffing with cables. I have an external disk with a separate power brick and I back up less than I should[*] because half the time I can't be bothered to get the thing out and untangle everything. * Important files are still backed up to an online service Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sb67 Posted October 8, 2011 Author Share Posted October 8, 2011 Recieved yesterday a seagate usb powered hard drive via amazon, now got to organise my pics and stuff ! Thanks for the advice guys. Steve. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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