How do you safekeep your pictures?

[vettechick99]

I'm asking because I'm wondering what my best option is. I have a Sony Vaio desktop with a 140G HD (2.4GHz). Currently I have 35G of pictures stored here. Of the 35Gs I would imagine about 25Gs are of my child - if I lost pictures of her I would be devastated.

Lately my computer has been very slow and this is even after clearing off unused programs and old files. I think the sluggishness is partially due to the excessive number of pictures on here. So I would love to move them off permanently. My thought was an external HDD but I know they are not failproof by any means.

So I guess I could burn a million DVDs with these pictures but then they won't be easy to access when sharing and uploading. Online storage would take me a year...literally. ha!

I guess I could get more memory or internal HD space? A Mac? I guess I am thinking out loud here. Any advice for me?

 

[Miss Kelly]

I'd do a combination of all three. Make multiple copies because eventually your computer will crash, the external hard drive could/will crash, CDs/DVDs will become corrupt, etc Burn them to CDs/DVDs, upload them to a place like SmugMug or Flickr, keep a copy on an external hard drive, and keep a copy on your computer's hard drive. Maybe that's overkill for a regular consumer, but that's what I do with all my client files.

 

[gruZ]

Make multiple backups in different physical locations if you can. For example, an external HDD is a good first step - but if you simply move them from the PC to the HDD you still only have one copy. If the HDD dies (and they do from time to time), you are still SOL.

So, multiple copies of backups. I have an external HDD that I back everything up to, in additional to the hard drive on my mac. I also use an on-line service to back everything up. This way if, God forbid, my house was wiped out by a tornado (and therefore both the original PC and HDD were destroyed), there would still be an on-line copy as well. The service I use is Smugmug, which serves as the backup as well as hosting site for my photos. There are a number of different services out there depending on what you want to do, but I would definitely recommend a solution that is "off site."

If you were to go the DVD route, I would recommend you still make more than one copy. Keep one set at home and send the other set to a relative / safe deposit box / etc.

I justify the cost and effort of doing all this backing up by contrasting it against the horrifying thought of losing all the memories and moments from the last roughly 10 years. I can replace pretty much anything else on the mac, but if your only copy of the images are gone, you can't get them back.

Good luck!

 

[boBQuincy]

Just having lots of files on a computer drive will not slow it down, the files are just storage and are not being accessed. That is, until the drive becomes so full and fragmented that it affects operating system storage. It is unlikely that 35 GB of photos is the problem on a 140 GB hard drive.

Now then, never, *never* have only one copy of your photos, especially on a hard drive. All hard drives will eventually quit (unless they are taken out of service first). A backup, and another backup is a good strategy. 35 GB of DVDs is not that bad, maybe 8 or 10 of them. An external hard drive is a good secondary backup.

It's that, or one day your files will be lost.

 

[Groucho]

There is another current thread about this topic here... you may find some good info there.

 

[zulemara]

If your computer is slow, buy more RAM. That solves 99% of performance problems.

I would do the DVD thing. Personally I have an external hard drive and a mac, so I do time machine backups. I am going to make a website with all my photos as well when I get time, so that'll be another form of backup.

 

[cmwade77]

I use an external hard drive, upload to Mozy (really I use this to backup my entire computer) and upload to smugmug, this may also be overkill, but I know my photos are safe.

 

[MICKEY88]

I agree with the others who have answered so far, another good hosting/storage site is Zenfolio, they are very similar to smugmug, the reason I chose them over smugmug is they use mpix as their printing site, and they are cheaper for the pemium account...

as far as it taking a year to upload 35 gig of pics, it shouldn't take all that long unless you have a dial up connection

 

[MarkBarbieri]

If your computer is slow, buy more RAM. That solves 99% of performance problems.

I would do the DVD thing. Personally I have an external hard drive and a mac, so I do time machine backups. I am going to make a website with all my photos as well when I get time, so that'll be another form of backup.

I've found that actively used Windows machines in which new software is frequently installed eventually get junked up. I'm not sure what it is, but I do a theraputic re-install of the OS about once every two years.

For a truly permanent solution to picture backups, I'm working on a process that uses blueberry juice and white cotton shirts. It's still in the development phase.

 

[npmommie]

So the hosting sites like smugmug, how long can you leave the pics there, and how many?
I have a photobucket account i use , is smugmug like that?

And one more question, what about film..........how do you deal with that? I have some pics from a film camera, I am thinking of scanning them into the computer and then saving them to disk, online, etc.
any ideas?