photo storage question

[chocovrdmicears]

Hoping the experts here can help me with what I am sure is an embarassingly simple question.
I have all of my photos stored in dozens of different folders on my hard drive...clearly this is not a safe situation. The idea of saving all my lifes photos on a hosting site (like photobucket) long term doesn't feel like it is a good idea either...
I would like to be able to store them on discs...I know it is not as simple as putting the disc into my computer and saving the pictures...Can anyone tell me what exactly I need to purchase to be able to do this? A disc burner? (forgive me I don't even know what it is called!) Is it something that I can just plug into the back of my hard drive? What can I expect to pay for something like that and where is the best place to buy?
Thank you in advance for your help!

 

[Groucho]

If you are completely unsure, your best bet is to find a local computer guy to give you a hand. You may be best checking your newspaper or Penny Saver or whatever for small companies (or people working alone) who specialize in helping people with their home computers.

That being said, you are right to be concerned. I've done IT work for many years now and seen countless hard drive failures, and more than once, they've wiped out tons of irreplaceable data - like photos, videos, etc. You can send your dead drive off to have the data recovered, but such recoveries are extremely expensive - like, $1,500+.

What you need is a DVD burner. If you have a desktop machine, you can find a good internal DVD burner online for all of $30 or so. Blank DVDs can be had for 20-25 cents when bought in 50 or 100-packs. You'll also want some software - I like Nero. If you buy a "retail" package burner (as opposed to an OEM one, which is just the drive, nothing else), you may get a "lite" version of Nero (or similar software), which may be all you need.

Basically, once the burner is installed, you launch your burning software (like Nero), tell it that you want to make a data DVD, drag on all the stuff that you can fit (it will tell you how much space is left on the DVD), and once you have enough to fill a DVD, begin to burn it. This takes 10-20 minutes or so.

Make sure that your software is set to verify after burning! That way, you can be sure that the burn was successful and there are no errors.