picture storage

[marky]

What method of picture storage should i use?....should i buy an external hard drive, and back up my pix onto cd's, what do you all suggest?....I'm very aware that if my hard drive gets corrupted or fails i could lose all my pix at the moment......

 

[luis patricio]

Two external hard drives, one for achive and the other to backup the archive!
(You will get crazy with DVD backup if you shot Raw)

 

[marky]

as i suspected...thx Luis......

 

[Kamil]

When storing the pictures on DVD, you have to choose a good place to store the DVDs. Stored the wrong way (too much light etc.), it can happen, that the DVDs are not readable in a few years.

 

[luis patricio]

as i suspected...thx Luis......

For extreme security add a third drive to make a backup of the backup and keep it in a different fisical place, in another house/office for example!
And don't forget to keep the backup drives unpluged from usb and electricity, just plug when you need them!!!

 

[marky]

just bought a 500gig drive..........ok... im going to do my own little contest here........how long do you think it will take me to fill it up?, the winner will get a cup of tea and some biscuits to dunk in it!........

 

[luis patricio]

Fast count: with gx100 approximately 1 year if to take 80 photos per day (RAW+JPG=17.9MB)
What is the size of GRD JPG and RAW+JPG?
How many pictures do you take per month??? :lol:

 

[Kamil]

as i suspected...thx Luis......

For extreme security add a third drive to make a backup of the backup and keep it in a different fisical place, in another house/office for example!

Sounds paranoid :twisted:
Maybe it's not a bad idea to store the pictures on an online server, because there are several (better) backup solutions integrated and if your own HDs get stolen, broken or whatever, you still have the pictures online. Another advantage: you have access from anywhere in the world to your pictures without the need to carry all of them with you.
Of course, the more space you need on the server, the more you'll have to pay and it's important to find a seroius webspace provider.

 

[luis patricio]

Sounds paranoid :twisted:

It just sounds paranoid until you lost some data! :cry: I hope not!

Maybe it's not a bad idea to store the pictures on an online server, because there are several (better) backup solutions integrated and if your own HDs get stolen, broken or whatever, you still have the pictures online. Another advantage: you have access from anywhere in the world to your pictures without the need to carry all of them with you.
Of course, the more space you need on the server, the more you'll have to pay and it's important to find a seroius webspace provider.

Online backup for large amounts of data is an option but it has an high storage price and to be pratical you will need a dedicated web access with a very good upload speed. You dont need this kind of storage service to access you files from anywhere, the cheapest solutions are:
1. install an fpt server in you home/office pc; (cheapest)
2. Use an external storage disk (NAS) with FTP server;
3. Use a router with VPN server.

 

[marky]

thx for all your advice guys....all of this is a little too technical for me....ftp server? NAS? VPN?......argh...who said the transition from film to digital photography was easy!....so much to learn...and i dont even have photoshop yet!