Best Way to Store Digital Photos?

[Antonia]

I have tons of digital photos stored on my hard drive. I need to store them, but not sure of the best way to do this.

Should I put them on a disk? If so what type? I know nothing about these things so please spell it out. I see all these disks that say R/W etc. but it means nothing to me.

Then a guy said I should put them on a flash drive or something.

I just need the basic bottom line for a digital photo dummy to be able to store photos so I can get them off my hard drive.

Thanks for any and all help!

 

[annnewjerz]

I think you will find that most people will recommend storing them in multiple places. For example, I burn all of my photos onto DVDs and keep them in a fireproof box in my house. I then also make an extra copy of my favorites and keep them at my Mom's house. In addition, I upload my favorites onto an online photo hosting site, like photobucket, snapfish, smugmug, etc. Lastly (and most recently) I purchased an external hard drive for our computer. Not only will it free up space on our internal hard drive, but it is also something that once full, I can store somewhere safe and not have to worry about all of my pictures disappearing.

My recommendation would be to, at least, upload them onto a photo hosting site, as well as burn copies onto DVDs (not CD's - DVDs hold much more data than CDs so you will use less discs). If and when you can afford to do so, then purchase an external hard drive or two.

Never just store photos in one place because if, heaven forbid, your computer kicks the bucket or your external hard drive fails...you always want to have a back-up.

Good luck!!

 

[dburg30]

Wow..

Where to start. Well, putting them on a flash drive, just wont really be feasable if you have very many pictures. And let's admit it, you will be adding to it I would guess..

You may want to read this post to start http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2000549

If you are looking for safe backups, you will need more then one storage device, and actually have one that is stored 'off site' in case of a fire or something terrible like that. There are online storage services, but they can take a while to upload them if you have a lot of pictures.

You can make DVD's with the pictures, but again, if you have a lot, or they are big files, you can eat up those pretty quickly also.

I'm sure others will chime in and we'll get a better idea of exactly what you are wanting to do thru this thread.

We'll get you pointed in the right direction

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I would burn them to a DVD. Make two copies of each DVD. Store one at home and one at your office. That works unless you have an insane amount of pictures and need to burn bunches of DVDs. If that is the case, use removable hard drives, but do the same thing - make two copies and store them in different locations.

If you only have a few pictures and a really good memory, you could open the picture files in a hex editor and just memorize the hex values for each picture. Then, if you need one, you can just key in the hex values using the text editor and you have a fresh copy of the picture. Your friends will all be terribly impressed.

 

[dburg30]

.

If you only have a few pictures and a really good memory, you could open the picture files in a hex editor and just memorize the hex values for each picture. Then, if you need one, you can just key in the hex values using the text editor and you have a fresh copy of the picture. Your friends will all be terribly impressed.

LOL, dont confuse the poor person

 

[The Grays]

I double archive my files. I burn the images on GOLD DVDs (to have a long life) and also have an external hard drive. I make sure that the hard drive is only on when I need it and also make sure I have it on a good surge protector.

 

[handicap18]

I currently have well over 130GB in picture files. This includes both JPEG and RAW and edited images. When I download from the memory card the computer automatically copies the files to 2 different hard drives. Once a month or so I also backup everything to DVD's and also to a 3rd hard drive. I also have close to 5,000 images uploaded to smugmug.com for storing and sharing.

I also try not to reformat any memory card until the images on that card has already been burned to a DVD or are on at least 3 of my hard drives.

Just like memory cards for your camera, you can never have enough backup solutions for the images you have already taken.

 

[wenrob]

Like everyone said, multiple back ups. I have all my pics on two EHD's and regularly burn them to disk, keeping a copy in my safe and one at my sister's. I also have smugmug but admit I'm lax in loading my pics there. A note on photo hosting sites, don't go with photobucket as a back up. They destroy your pictures w/compression. They're fine for posting but I wouldn't recommend them for preservation.

 

[MM_Bound]

External drives are great since retention *should* be longer than the life span of a DVD (which is really only approx 5 years for general DVDs), and it should also be cheaper in the long run.
Currently I copy the photos to an internal drive in the computer, then run a backup to copy them to an external drive that is only connected when run the backup. Once a week I do another backup to back them up to another external drive which I take to another location incase of disaster. I also use a web host that I publish my faves to.
An important note is if you do back up to external drives you should make sure you disconnect the drive (usb and firewire) when not in use. If you get a power surge and it destroys your PC and your external drive was connected to would most likely destroy your drive as well.
The more places the merrier with back ups.

 

[Groucho]

Another option is to use an online backup place, like Mozy or Carbonite. For a flat annual fee, you can backup unlimited amounts of data right over the internet, and backups are then their problem instead of your problem! If you're not sure how it all works, Mozy offers two gigs of backups completely free, all you need is an email address and to answer a few basic questions.

Of course, this won't work so well if you're on dial-up, but as long as you have a half-way decent internet connection, it's worth considering, especially if you're confused by all the technical talk.

By the way, since you asked about R/W and all that... here are the most common disc types out there.
CD-R - holds 700 megs of data, can only be written to once
CD-RW - holds 700 megs of data, can be written and erased and rewritten later
DVD-R - holds about 4.5 gigs of data, can only be written to once
DVD+R - basically the same as a DVD-R (some technical differences but nothing to worry about)
DVD-RW (or DVD+RW) - holds about 4.5 gigs of data, can be written and erased and rewritten later

You need a CD burner to burn CDs, and a DVD burner can burn DVDs and CDs. Bluray burners are coming down in price but still a long way from being nearly as affordable. DVDs are easily the best bargain, good DVD burners are incredibly cheap (under $30 online) and blank media is several times cheaper per meg than CDs.

To burn a disc, you'll want a program designed for burning discs, like Nero (comes with some burners) or the free CDburnerXP.

 

[DisneydaveCT]

Part of my storage includes a form of recycling.

Like others here, I use DVD's and a flash drives. In addition, I have taken an old desktop and stripped it of old documents/software and now use it as a storage device for all pics. It is tied into my home's network so I can send the photos to a printer and to the Internet. The old computer lives next to my workbench in the basement.

 

[cmwade77]

I highly recommend using an online backup service, I actually use two (mozy, which I use to backup all of my computer and smugmug for photos only), in addition use an external hard drive. Both of the online services will send DVDs, if you need, for an extra charge of course, but well worth the piece of mind that it provides. I have the external hard drive, so all that I have to do in an emergency is pick it up and go. I just need to scan in all of our old photos, so that we don't loose them.

 

[seashoreCM]

I would recommend recopying CD's and DVD's every few years. I'm not confident that they don't slowly deteriorate by themselves. Especially since the the process involves an organic dye.

 

[The Grays]

I would recommend recopying CD's and DVD's every few years. I'm not confident that they don't slowly deteriorate by themselves. Especially since the the process involves an organic dye.

The silver CDs do have a life span. From what i have read the average is 3 to 6 years. I have had a number of silver CDs go bad on me. I back up all my important information onto Gold CDs and Gold DVDs. They have a 300 and 100 year life respectively.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

http://adterrasperaspera.com/blog/2006/10/30/how-to-choose-cddvd-archival-media

 

[RBennett]

http://adterrasperaspera.com/blog/2006/10/30/how-to-choose-cddvd-archival-media

That was a REALLY great article, Mark!! Thanks for posting it! The only question I'm trying to figure out now is: Do the gold DVDs protect your media longer or not?? According to the author, gold dvds do NOT protect your data any longer than Taiyo Yuden. So is it better to buy from T.Y. or to buy a gold dvd??

 

[Groucho]

FWIW, I think the whole "deteriorate in 3-6 years" is a bit pessimistic, that sounds like a number cooked up to increase sales of "archival" media! I've got dozens and dozens of CDs that were burnt 8-10 years ago on a variety of media (some very cheap!) and the vast majority are just fine.

The issues that seem to cause failure are either some failure inbetween the layers (where the dye layer looks to have warped in a spot) or, more commonly, the top reflective layer (where you write on) flakes off somewhere and the laser passes through instead of being bounced back.

 

[The Grays]

FWIW, I think the whole "deteriorate in 3-6 years" is a bit pessimistic, that sounds like a number cooked up to increase sales of "archival" media! I've got dozens and dozens of CDs that were burnt 8-10 years ago on a variety of media (some very cheap!) and the vast majority are just fine.

I felt the same way..until it happend to me. The time they give is an average, not exact, so some may last longer and some shorter. I spoke with a few Professionals that had archived images and they found that after a whuile they had corrupt files and could not oprn the images, ones they had oppened befor. I think there was an articlein the New York Time also about the life of silver CDs.

I know about 4 other photographers that had CDs go bad on them
and they lost the images.

I now have over a thousand on gold CDs and have not had one with a bad file or bad CD. So I will back up on an special HD and gold CD/DVD