HELP!too many photos now

[tckadventures]

O.K you pros out there, how do you store all those wonderful shots that must be in the thousands. Since starting on the digital camera only a matter of 6 months or so my photo collection has been gradually increasing.

I have been saving on disks however trying to download them off the disks back onto the computer is a real pain they are in the large JPEGS so that takes time I know but......

[rent]

my archival workflow is something like this:

1) From CFCard To: portable storage and laptop (saving to portable storage is usually done during shooting session, saving to laptop is usually right after the session)
2) From portable storage to: external harddrive #1 (only when portable storage is full)
3) From laptop (this is my main working area), apply image workflow: basically get rid of the obviously bad ones, select the good ones for post processing, burn RAW, intermediate and final files to DVD and to external harddrive #2. DVDs to be stored at different location.

specs:
portable storage: 80gb 3.5" harddrive + cardreader (x-drive pro)
hdd#1 & #2: 250gb
dvd burner

the basic idea is to have two backup copies of everything at any given time. in fact, the keepers end up in three different places (on both harddrives and on dvd).

yeah it's quite a pain, but you get used to it and it just becomes a habit.

-alex

O.K you pros out there, how do you store all those wonderful shots that must be in the thousands. Since starting on the digital camera only a matter of 6 months or so my photo collection has been gradually increasing.

I have been saving on disks however trying to download them off the disks back onto the computer is a real pain they are in the large JPEGS so that takes time I know but......

[tommykjensen]

In this thread a lot of different ways of backing up photos have described:

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=73792

[tckadventures]

Thanks heaps to both of you, it seems you do have to backup several ways just incase of technology failure. My backup of CDs didn't copy well and had real trouble installing them back on to the computer. Thankfully my husband is becomming a real wiz with all our computers and has networked them so I was finally able to retrieve them through some random techno thingo!! THANK GOD!! might have to invest in some DVDs

[tim]

Oh my god, learn your lesson and avoid optical media. Keep your images on at least 2 hard drives, and make sure those drives are kept in different buildings. I keep my images on 4 hard drives in 2-3 locations. When the drive's are full, I buy more.

[Hellashot]

Backup on to DVDs. They're cheap now and hold lots of JPGs if that's what you shoot and store.

[Baadil]

If you use only DVDs to backup, I would recommend at least 2 DVD backups for every image. It takes only a few seconds to find out your dvd backup is either scratched, bent, cracked or simply peeled-off dead. I would also highly recommend getting an external hard drive. Getting another internal may save you $30 or so (external enclosure cost) but you can easily kill your both internal hard rives if your system decides to act live living in the sun in Arizona.

[tckadventures]

Well after reading all these and comming soooo close to loosing all my great (??) photos Iwent out & got a hard drive and and my husband was nice enough to give me his new computer, as he only uses his for the net and word processing, and as we all know these digital images certainly need a lot of memory. thanks everyone.

[aam1234]

Which HDD did you get. I'm going to buy one in the next couple of days.

[tckadventures]

Well long story, actually i didn't do any reasearch about it all as we had major problems with computers and the like. A few weeks ago my daughters laptop failed to proceed (Yea, I know NOW! giving a laptop to a teenager not a good thing!) it was under warranty but didn't hear from the company for a while and sharing MY computer with her was a real pain so we went out and bought another so I could have mine back. Anyway just the other day My husband was phoned up from the rep and after meeting with him personally he handed over a new computer to replace the broken one. As my husband can talk a leg off a table he mentioned & grumbled about the trouble we had over the last few days with my computer just not writting properly to the CD. Even though it said it had been done correctly, however when we wanted to retrieve them and reboot the computer the thing just couldn't read the photos. I was just about in tears, loosing all my photos, thank god I have just started and haven't really managed to get any thing that I would call up to great standard, yet all the family photos were there as well which would have been annoying if I had lost those. However as i mentioned hubby managed to network them and saved the lot. Anyway to cut a long story short the rep after hearing all these hassles literally gave us/ME a hard drive in compensation. So what he gave me was "Maxtor One Touch2" 200 GB, *MB cache 7200rpm. It holds over 150,000 JPEGs or 14 hours of DVD as it says on the box as we/my dear loving husband (crawl crawl!) hasn't plugged it in yet. It also says it has automatic backup which will be good. this week has really been a pain with computers.

[aam1234]

Glad the story had a happy ending :D

[CyberPet]

I store my images on two copies of DVD's. one for use if I need to "grab" one off a disk and I'm not near my other source of backup, an external 250 GB harddrive. I'm paranoid that I am going to lose images, so I think I have at least 3 different harddrives with digital images on (from 4.5+ years) and 2 DVD copies. Although, if the house burn down, I'm pretty much toast, since I don't have a bank vault to put a copy in, just in case.

Me paranoid? Naaaah! :D

[BrandonSi]

Shoot on 1GB CF Card in RAW
Transfer RAW files to a seperate 4BG partition I made.
Develop RAW to TIF, determine which to keep.
**Repeat until no more space on the 4gb Parition**
Burn 4g partition to DVD
Format 4g parition and start all over again.

[tim]

I store my images on two copies of DVD's. one for use if I need to "grab" one off a disk and I'm not near my other source of backup, an external 250 GB harddrive. I'm paranoid that I am going to lose images, so I think I have at least 3 different harddrives with digital images on (from 4.5+ years) and 2 DVD copies. Although, if the house burn down, I'm pretty much toast, since I don't have a bank vault to put a copy in, just in case.

Me paranoid? Naaaah! :D

Can you keep a copy at work, or at your partners work in their desk draw? I don't think you're paranoid, I have 4 copies on hard disk, one of them offsite, plus an occasional DVD backup that I store in another city.... if you're paranoid what am I?!

[CyberPet]

Tim, you're so clever! Well, I work from home, so it has to be hubby's work (he works at Microsoft, you think they like to store Mac files? *giggles*). Thanks for that suggestion! I'm gonna buy a special CD-case that he can fill with my backups on DVD. :D

Have one harddrive in the basement though, so all harddrives aren't on the same level, and not in the same room either. (I'll put my camera near one, so if a fire starts, I'll grab the camera *and* the harddrive.

Yes, I should go to bed... getting way too paraniod now (we have two fireplaces, kind of scary). :D

[tim]

I don't trust DVDs, personally i'd use a laptop hard drive in an enlosure. I presume laptop drives are made to take more impact than a desktop hard drive, but that's just an assumption.

[tckadventures]

I think Iam starting to get in the "paranoia club":-? just hearing all these stories! :)