Suggestions for storing, backing up and organizing photos

Sorry to start another "how do I organize my photos" question, my situation is a bit different. I'm fairly new to photography and find it fun and rewarding taking nice photos of the kids.
Currently, I have several years worth of photos stored on my NAS by year and somtimes event (ex. 2005 Aruba). It was by month as well but I recently reorganized them to just year folders, it became difficult to go through all those folders to find a photo I was looking for. In the past I've always used Windows laptops with ACDSee to browse and look at and make minor edits to my photos. It was nice set up the slide show screen saver as well off the NAS, the kids loved it. But working off the NAs is often slow.

Recently, I started using a Macbook pro and found it nice how iPhoto automatically imports the new photos when you insert a memory card. But I don't think iPhoto or some of the other programs can catalog photos on a NAS. I also have a difficlut time finding the photos that iPhoto imported; it doesn't seem as straightforward as a PC. But it's probably because I'm not so comfortable on a Mac yet. I also like the NAS because my TV has a slideshow feature which is pretty cool.

So I'm trying to figure out the best way to:
A. store my photos so all my devices can access it (Samsung TV, Macbook, Windows laptop...possibly even iPad in the future
B. Be able to work on the photos in iPhoto, Lightroom or Aperture (not sure which is the best for me).
C. Be able to upload them to online photo albums to share. I've used Picasa in the past and that seems pretty good. Recently though it seems like it is more difficult to share an album, the recipient has to have a Google Circles account and log in? Not sure if Google has been making some changes to it or now.

I'm trying to avoid having to import my photos more than once. Thanks for any suggestions!

I'm not familiar enough with iPhoto to comment on it. What I would suggest is that you take the time to study some of the digital asset management (DAM) threads that taken place here or on other forums. Those that are just starting out should take the opportunity to establish a workflow and folder structure that will serve them for the years to come. If you start off cataloging your images it really doesn't matter what your folder structure is as you can always find the images by keyword, date, body type, etc. However, I do have a specific folder structure that works well for me.

There is no shortage of cataloging software and here is a comparison chart that someone put together. Lightroom is good as it serves multiple purposes but I only suggest that you spend the money on this if you are really going to use the other modules it has. In the grander scheme of things it is an expensive database for your images. Here are some other other links that pertain to DAM. The DAM Book Forum is not overly active but it does have good information on it. There are a couple of books that you could read up on this as well and they are The DAM Book and/or Digital Photography Workflow and Best Practices.

I have slightly more than 11TB of hard disk space and then I also back up to external drives as well so that I have at least two copies of everything. I move files that I know are not going to be regularly accessed off onto one of my network drives. I wouldn't suggest backing up to DVD as they are just too slow and I have had read problems after the fact. You can get a 500GB external drive now for quite cheap and I think that is the better way to go.

Did you manually sort the images into folders on your network drive? The speed issue is exactly why I don't use one. I'm suggesting an external drive also -- you don't want your MBP to be jammed with images and an external is easier to move around (duh), copy, etc.

If you want to use iPhoto (which I use for personal/family crap, i.e. 2005 Aruba), you can import them by your folders and keep the sorting in tact. Personally, I'd turn off that auto-import option. I'm not sure how a Mac can be less straightforward than a PC... but if you want to store your images on an external drive, you can keep an iPhoto Library on any external drive you want. My iPhoto Library, on my boot drive with apps and user data, backs up via Time Machine every couple of hours to another internal HD on my MacPro. About once a month, I clone my boot drive to another that goes in a safe deposit box (my wife works at a bank). There are wireless playback devices and/or cables that can get your library to your TV.

I use a Lightroom catalog for all my serious work. I have a lot of individual folders on the same volume that sort by event, and added to Lightroom by using Add, not Copy. Lightroom keeps my sorting as well. That drive is 2 Tb (with other/weaker/"brackete​d" images archived elsewhere), and it gets sync'd/cloned daily, with a 3rd copy on the same schedule and vault as the boot drive bu. All in all, I have maybe 14 HDs ranging from 1-2 TB doing archiving and backup of 8 TB internal. (And another 10 GB of movies and music.)

The WD TV Live is a great player for (these movies, and) images on hard drives. Its about $100 and is a great interface -- if you need a good TV viewer for your photos on that external drive. But it won't be able to read an iPhoto Library...

I'm kinda in the same boat and recently purchased this:

http://www.seagate.com …MvZ78rP2qwCFcp6​5QodHxQdqg

It's a wireless expandable backup system and works with your existing router and can connect all computers, tablets and phones. I haven't set it up yet so, I can't comment and how good it functions.

aquaforester wrote in post #13465161
I'm kinda in the same boat and recently purchased this:

http://www.seagate.com …MvZ78rP2qwCFcp6​5QodHxQdqg

It's a wireless expandable backup system and works with your existing router and can connect all computers, tablets and phones. I haven't set it up yet so, I can't comment and how good it functions.

But her NAS is slow. It's a good overnight backup tech, but not as a working drive. Good for streaming I suppose.

I also should have mentioned that my 2 dozen external drive are in very few cases (FW and eSATA), and the rest use a pair of Voyager eSATA drive bays with various models for the external interface you want. I use 2, and they travel well.

It's tough to keep all of your photos organized and backed up.

You can put an iPhoto and an Aperture Library on a NAS but you cannot open the libraries on your Windows PC or your Samsung TV. With Lightroom you can store the catalog on a NAS and access it from your Mac and your Windows computer but not the Samsung TV. If you really want to view them on the Samsung TV then something like a NAS or a Windows Home Server is your best bet. My Samsung TV will see my WHS. My WHS is and HP and it has a "file gathering" program that I can point to folders on my Macs and PCs and it will poll the folders several times a day and copy any new files it finds over to a specific folder on the Server. Just remember that the Samsung cannot display RAW files so you will have to store them as a jpg.

As far as finding the photos that iPhoto imports, iPhoto actually embeds them in the iPhoto Library (so does Aperture). They are not easy to get to although you can get there. Just find the iPhoto Library, it is usually in the Pictures folder, right click the library and chose "Show Package Contents". Inside the package contents there is a "Masters" folder. The originals are stores in folders under that folder. I find it easier to just create my own folders and use finder to copy the files from the card. Then I tell iPhoto (and Aperture) not to copy the files into the library when importing.

One final note. Both Aperture and iPhoto will publish your Albums to a Flickr account. For backup Time Machine is a good option. You can setup Time Machine to backup to either a locally connected external hard drive or a NAS (note that the NAS is extremely slow on the initial backup). The down side to Time Machine is that it is an all or nothing backup, so you can just select your Pictures folder.

Thanks for the replies. I'm running a Synology NAS on a gigabit switch. On my "to do" list is to run cat 6e cables from the switch to the office and bedroom. A hardwired gigabit connection should be faster than USB drive correct?
Thanks for the info on iPhoto, time machine and Flickr, I'll have to look into these. I didn't see anything to indicate it can publish to Flickr, my iPhoto is probably 2 versions old.
Nothing's ever easy is it?

I have mine organized on an external HDD. I go by year, then I sort by Month (alphabetically Easier to find June etc...). Recently I started sorting them by date. When we were on a trip in Hawaii I decided it would be nice to separate our vacation photos by date. That worked out pretty well and I have been doing all of my photos that way ever since.

For instance, Under June I'd have a folder called '6-1 Hawaii Cruise Ship'
Then the next one would be '6-2 North Side Beach' or whatever.

I'd pick the most exciting thing we did that day and title the folder accordingly. That way when my wife asks me for the photos from our day at the North Side Beach I just need to remember the date.

I am currently working on a Database that will help me pinpoint the photos a little better. Because when my wife asks me "Where are those Fall photos from a few years ago"? I'm at a loss. I have about 4 months per year to hunt down fall photos. Not fun. But with a Database I can have it tell me the exact dates I took "Fall Photos".

gizmo17 wrote in post #13467838
Thanks for the replies. I'm running a Synology NAS on a gigabit switch. On my "to do" list is to run cat 6e cables from the switch to the office and bedroom. A hardwired gigabit connection should be faster than USB drive correct?
Thanks for the info on iPhoto, time machine and Flickr, I'll have to look into these. I didn't see anything to indicate it can publish to Flickr, my iPhoto is probably 2 versions old.
Nothing's ever easy is it?

Way faster. For bigger iPhoto collections, I'd recommend staying current (you got a new MBP, but an old version of iPhoto?) and even going for iLife. It has some minimal editing tools, but handles large Libraries much better. For even better performance, you could set up multiple Libraries based on whatever criteria you choose.

MacBookPros have a FW connection (dependent upon age, either 400 or 800), so you might want to look for an enclosure or bay device that has a faster port. You're a few years away from Thunderbold being reasonable for smaller storage, although there are some drives that can be configured as RAID. (Not that I'm a huge fan of RAID as a good BU strategy.)

Sorry, the Macbook pro is actually about 5 years old. I bought it secondhand from a sibling who couldn't figure out how to use it. All I've been using it for was surfing for the last 2 years until recently; when I saw how nice the photos looked on the 17" screen conpared to the 13" Lenovo, I decided to switch.
I want to start shooting in raw format too, so my file sizes will only increase which is why I want to figure out my storage/organizing situation.

gizmo17 wrote in post #13468758
Sorry, the Macbook pro is actually about 5 years old. I bought it secondhand from a sibling who couldn't figure out how to use it. All I've been using it for was surfing for the last 2 years until recently; when I saw how nice the photos looked on the 17" screen conpared to the 13" Lenovo, I decided to switch.
I want to start shooting in raw format too, so my file sizes will only increase which is why I want to figure out my storage/organizing situation.

How can anyone not figure out how to use a Mac, especially after 3 years (rhetorical). I've got an autistic daughter and 85 year old mother on them with ease. Mac screen are a big reason the laptops are a success, aside from the not-ugly factor and (usually) easy-to-figure operating system. You'll definitely want to check your ram to max it. You also have a FW 400 port, which has a greater sustained read/write speed than USB. (Not sure if its USB or not, but even USB2 can not keep up the sustained rate.) You might not need sustainability, and USB enclosures are cheap and plentiful.

As far as video out goes, I believe it's ADC, which can go to others easily with the right adapter, although they're getting scarce. Check out LowEndMac.com. 5 years old might be PPC and not Intel which will seriously limit your software choices.

gizmo17 wrote in post #13468758
Sorry, the Macbook pro is actually about 5 years old. I bought it secondhand from a sibling who couldn't figure out how to use it. All I've been using it for was surfing for the last 2 years until recently; when I saw how nice the photos looked on the 17" screen conpared to the 13" Lenovo, I decided to switch.
I want to start shooting in raw format too, so my file sizes will only increase which is why I want to figure out my storage/organizing situation.

I would go ahead and max out your RAM, I think a 5 year old MacBook Pro goes to 8 gig. It's pretty easy to do yourself. Just 2x4Gig SIMMs. One screw on the back and there you are. Also go for an OS X upgrade to Snow Leopard (I would't even think about Lion) and you will have access to the Mac App store. Once there you can pick up the latest iPhoto. You should easily get everything for around $200 or less.

mspringfield wrote in post #13469220
I would go ahead and max out your RAM, I think a 5 year old MacBook Pro goes to 8 gig. It's pretty easy to do yourself. Just 2x4Gig SIMMs. One screw on the back and there you are. Also go for an OS X upgrade to Snow Leopard (I would't even think about Lion) and you will have access to the Mac App store. Once there you can pick up the latest iPhoto. You should easily get everything for around $200 or less.

Late 06 is a core2duo processor, so you're in luck with intel apps. But you still can't run the newest software on older processors. If it's the late 06 model, it has a DVI video port, both FW 400 and 800. Came with 2 GB RAM, which isn't enough for much. Not enough for Snow Leopard.

If it's early 06 (as in late 05), it's a G4 (I think, so check it yourself) you are much more limited. Snow Leopard requires intel, and, amazingly 1GB Ram minimum, but I wouldn't advise it with even 2gb for bigger iPhoto libraries.

I recently upgraded to Snow Leopard thinking I'd upgrade to Lion next but I just stopped at Snow Leopard. It does have the DVI video port. I'll have to check on my RAM, I guess depending on the price for 8GB of RAM, it becomes upgrade or buy new. I've been eyeing the Canon 70-200mm IS ii, so maybe my current Mac is fine. Are there that many new features in the new version of iPhoto?

gizmo17 wrote in post #13480904
I recently upgraded to Snow Leopard thinking I'd upgrade to Lion next but I just stopped at Snow Leopard. It does have the DVI video port. I'll have to check on my RAM, I guess depending on the price for 8GB of RAM, it becomes upgrade or buy new. I've been eyeing the Canon 70-200mm IS ii, so maybe my current Mac is fine. Are there that many new features in the new version of iPhoto?

You're complaining it's slow but don't know how much RAM? Shame...
New ones have 4 Gb RAM, old ones 2, out of the box.