I have too many photos

Some of you may have the same problem, but I have too many photos. It is impractical to burn them all to DVD as it would take too long. It took a long time to shoot all these and would be impossible to replace them if I ever lost them.

What is the best way to store them?

Back them up to two other external drives. Keep one at home and keep one off sight at a friends place.

Oh, and edit more aggressively!

+1 to what flyingphotog said.
Big hard drives are so cheap now, I got a pair of 2tb Western digital drives for $79 each
Both have exactly the same stuff on them (1.2tb of my photos so far)
One lives at home, and the other lives at work.

My workflow for the drives is

Shoot photos
Download to laptop
Copy to drive 1 (home)
Format cards if they are needed again (I try to keep the images on the cards until the picks are backed up on the other drive too, but a copy on the laptop and the home drive gives me some redundancy)
Take laptop to work with me and copy images to drive 2 (work drive)

I try to edit most of the really bad pics out in camera, and then keep what's left (as long as it's sharp)

If the OP is in the US and has access to Costco (maybe a friend who's a member?) they have WD 3Tb My Books on sale for $129...

I use a picture site as a back up - uploading full sized edited Jpgs (over 110,000 images 250gb on my site). I dont trust online storage any more than any other storage method though.
I also keep back ups on external drives. Inexpensive, easier and probably just as reliable as DVDs. I have just about finished filling a pair of 3tb drives I purchased a few months back. I am sure I could cull out more pics and not save RAWs but at this stage I would prefer to have the option.
My 3tb drives were both under $130. Be nice if they came down a little more though.

I have a 12 TB RAID hooked up. This is what I do for now. I have 2 of these sets one that stays at home and is backed up to constantly and the other that stays at work. Once a week I bring them home and switch them around.

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Good advice people.

I never delete anything (too lazy) and save all my photos in RAW format.

Workflow:
Shoot photos
Download to laptop using Lightroom
Originals go to an small USB-powered external HD that stays tethered to my laptop
Lightroom makes a temp backup to the internal laptop HD
Using SyncToy I backup original files to an big external HD at home
Using SyncToy I backup original files to a big external HD at work
Format CF card
Delete temp files on internal HD

The reason I keep my originals on an USB powered external HD is because my employer owns the laptop. If something bad happens at work the external HD, which I own, goes in my pocket on my way out the door. Just sayin.

I always follow the same workflow, always. I'm prone to nucklehead mistakes otherwise.

I would go for an external drives as well. Get a 1tb 2.5" drives. They are very handy (no power box) and stable compared to the cheap but unreliable 2tb big drives.
But instead of getting 2, get one, and get an online backup too. Then you never have to worry.
I personally use LiveDrive. Link: http://network-backup.blogspot.com/
They have 5tb storage and a LOT of features. They are not the cheapest on the market, but they work..

Delete more photos. I doubt all those photos you have are keepers and there is no reason to keep them if they arent IMO.

Keep all of them and buy more external HD's and take more pics

lol @ burning them into DVDs. if you have 16gb memory card that's 4 DVDs per memory card.

FlyingPhotog wrote in post #12966245
Back them up to two other external drives. Keep one at home and keep one off sight at a friends place.

Oh, and edit more aggressively!

Exactly. You'll find over time that you will become better (more aggressive) at editing. Over time I've switched from keeping most technically good photos to where now I only keep the photos that really help tell the story. Looking back on some of my older galleries, I now think "why did I keep 8 photos that basically tell the same story?" And then 6 more that show the next thing, then 12 more of the next, ...

I keep my photos in raw, but photos I completely reject get deleted. No sense in saving them. The only person I'm answerable to about which photos I delete is me, and I'm good with that. Even when I'm doing photos for the fire company, they don't know exactly which photos I took or how many photos I took. Excluding brides, not many people want to look at galleries of hundreds of photos. I don't deal with weddings, so I can't speak for how brides behave.

banpreso wrote in post #13020393
lol @ burning them into DVDs. if you have 16gb memory card that's 4 DVDs per memory card.

Unless you go dual layer DVDs which are 8GB each. But still.

Yea blank blu-rays need to come down in price more! 25GB on a single layer sounds MUCH better!

I like to use smaller memory cards. That way, street sessions require more immediate editing. The biggest problem I'm having is finding something smaller than 8gb. A 1gb card gives me around a 50 shot capacity @~12 mp. Also, having multiple small cards makes me feel better when traveling - loosing the camera does not mean loosing all of the photos as well. It would be great if I could find a 90MB/s SD with a 1GB capacity....