Picture backup

[sam_gordon]

My picture library on my computer is getting too big. It's ~93Gig and has pictures going back at least a decade. I have a networked 1Tb drive that everything is duplicated on.

I want to delete the pictures off my hard drive just to free up space, but I'm having a hard time doing it (paranoid). I don't have a blu-ray drive (I'm still running WinXP). If I do something online with that amount, it's going to cost money (and I'm cheap).

So do I...
1) Just bite the bullet and delete it all from my PC harddrive
2) Remain with the status quo (I have 8G free space remaining of my 222G drive)
3) Other?

 

[disneydentist]

With Winxp do you have a DVD burner? I have all my photos backed on DVDs (all 191 GB) and on TWO separate hard drives. I fully understand paranoid when it comes to photo backup.

 

[sam_gordon]

With Winxp do you have a DVD burner? I have all my photos backed on DVDs (all 191 GB) and on TWO separate hard drives. I fully understand paranoid when it comes to photo backup.

I do have a DVD burner. I'm just not looking forward to burning 20 DVDs. And then remembering where I put them.

 

[bigbabyblues]

DH has ours backed up on two external hard drives, kept in separate locations in case of fire, and he also uses an online backup. We had to get pics from the online service once, hence the two hard drives not in this house, and it took awhile to download them but no problems. He has a small photography business.

 

[jlewisinsyr]

Back them up to the cloud!

 

[sam_gordon]

Back them up to the cloud!

$$$$

 

[Tiger926]

I haven't backed up to DVDs in years...I have photos on main desktop, a portable vault that I can grab in an emergency, and a pocket drive vault that stays at the bank in the fireproof safety deposit box. This system requires continual maintenance, but it's not that difficult as I know in an emergency, I am covered as photos are stored in multiple locations and at multiple locations.

I don't have enough confidence in cloud services at this point, so I'm not interested in that as well.

I would purchase another external drive/vault and put the photos on there, and I wouldn't delete them off of your main computer until they are safely on the new drive.

Good luck! Tiger

 

[Bearybear]

Back them up to the cloud!

If you have ever used Snapfish or such service, they host them for free. And if you have Amazon prime, you get a certain amount of cloud space for free. All my pictures are backed up in the cloud, as that is the only (IMO) truly safe place after a friend's house was burglarized and their laptop and external storage drive were stolen. They lost most of their son's baby pictures (except the ones on FB and that they'd printed).

 

[jlewisinsyr]

$$$$

Not hardly. I spend less than $50 per year to back-up to the cloud with unlimited space and remote access from anywhere I can get a internet connection or signal. I would never rely on a local drive back-up as the only back-up; hard drives can fail, can be stolen, require continous maintenance to make sure you always have a current version/back-up. A safety deposit box to store your drive is good, but the cost per year, the convenience factor and not always having the current version of your data rely diminishes the return on it.

And for reference, we have just under 4TBs backed up to the cloud currently.

 

[Robbi]

All of my important stuff like pictures, I have multiple back ups-external hard drives and then my pictures are saved to zip drives by year. If you go with an external drive, treat it with kid gloves because they're incredibly sensitive.

 

[TruRiRi]

You can buy a cheap external hard drive, and then transfer your photos to it. Professionals do it all the time,

 

[sam_gordon]

Not hardly. I spend less than $50 per year to back-up to the cloud with unlimited space and remote access from anywhere I can get a internet connection or signal. I would never rely on a local drive back-up as the only back-up; hard drives can fail, can be stolen, require continous maintenance to make sure you always have a current version/back-up. A safety deposit box to store your drive is good, but the cost per year, the convenience factor and not always having the current version of your data rely diminishes the return on it.

And for reference, we have just under 4TBs backed up to the cloud currently.

Who do you use?

 

[Albort]

You can buy a cheap external hard drive, and then transfer your photos to it. Professionals do it all the time,

i would do this... 3TB HDD for $120. (expired yesterday though). thats another million pictures for you! :]

either that, or find programs to zip and compress...

 

[Shutterbug]

Two hard drives and DVD's.
Right now I am looking at prices of safety deposit boxes to use as offsite storage for one drive.

 

[Peanut Giggleface]

Just get an external hard drive. They're about the size of a cell phone and you can get different sized hard drives for different $$ amounts. You hook it up to your computer via USB (usually attached to the unit) and with a couple of clicks you're done.

 

[jlewisinsyr]

Who do you use?

Crashplan.

Just get an external hard drive. They're about the size of a cell phone and you can get different sized hard drives for different $$ amounts. You hook it up to your computer via USB (usually attached to the unit) and with a couple of clicks you're done.

But where do you put this external hard drive? In a safe at home, what if got stolen from there along with your computer or destroyed by fire (even fire proof safes are not a guarantee)? At a friends home or safety deposit box, how frequently are you really backing up your data?

Local back-ups are great for quick recovery (we run a RAID 1 for redundancy locally), but not so great for actual safe back-up.

 

[Atlas722]

After I upload my photos to my computer, I edit them and then burn them to CDs. I now have an external hard drive that I occasionally use for photo and video backup, and I never use online storage.