Storing/Backing Up Pictures

[Maesa]

A few questions

Where do you back up your pictures?

Where do you save your pictures?

I am not a professional and not a computer person, I just LOVE taking pictures ever since my daughter's were born. I have ALOT of pictures. I have hard drive and another one that is like a backup. So all I do is take the pictures off my camera and put them on my drive. Then it gets backed up to another drive that is attached to the computer.

I need another backup. I am so worried that these will crash. Do you do it online with those companies? I dont mind doing it but with which one? I wouldn't mind also saving the pictures to a CD - but is the CD going to last?

How do you back up your pictures?

Please give me all your advice. Sometimes I worry so much about my pictures it drive me insane - I know - I know...sounds crazy.

Can't wait to hear how every backs their pictures up.

April

 

[hakepb]

You can never have too many backups

Really, it's thinking about what can cause your precious pictures to disappear, and developing a contingency plan.

2 copies on site and a 3rd offsite is a good start.

Hard drives can fail, or be stolen, or be damaged by natural disasters.
CD or DVD at least provide a level of protection against drives that get "zapped" in a surge. Ideally you make new copies every year or 2, because they may not last years.
Others use an additional , external hard drive to copy, then unplug and store it somewhere else. Its easy to store that drive in another location (friend, relative, safety deposit box, work) for off-site backup.

Online storage is also good...but there is a difference between photo sharing sites (that "optimize" and loose a little of the picture quality) vs online backup like crashplan or Carbonite that backup the exact files.

 

[DoDaLeCa]

Generally I back up to external hard drives and for offsite archival grade DVD/bluray (with the supposed > 100 year life!).

You need to verify in some way that the file being copied is not corrupt and overwriting what might be the last good copy. If you use seperate one time media then this won't be an issue.

I have way too much photo data to use cloud storage for the cost associated but maybe that's another way to go.

 

[wiigirl]

I back them up to my computer and then mirror to an external hard drive. Then once a month I backup to bluray and drop it off to a filing cabnet I keep at my sister.

 

[photo_chick]

Totally agree that you can never have too many backups. And I cannot stress enough the importance of having a copy off site. Fire, flood, burglary... you never know what might happen to cause you to loose every copy at your home. Also keep in mind that every method of storage will fail. It doesn't matter what the packaging says, it will at some point fail.

I'm backed up to multiple hard drives, everything is also on disc (CD, DVD and blu ray) and then I have another couple of copies stashed off site.

 

[justinlauck]

I download the photos onto my macbook pro, which is backed up using backblaze. I then copy my photos to my synology nas which is backed up to Amazon Glacier. Lastly, I burn DVDs and put them in my gun safe which has a 60 minute fire rating. So, the files are in three places on-site, and two places off-site.

 

[pgowder]

I'm using CrashPlan Pro and Everpix for my cloud backup.

Both are pretty reasonable and work great.

Everpix only backs up jpgs though. But I've installed it on our our mobile devices. Good to know all those photos are being backed up too.

 

[zackiedawg]

Count me among the many backup contingent. My main desktop computer has a RAID array with twin mirrored 2TB drives, plus I do a monthly backup of the entire harddrive contents to a removable external drive, and I back up my photos only after a month or two separately to another removable drive. And on top of that, I've got DVD backups of all my photos done roughly annually, and stored off site at my office.

 

[Atlas722]

I back up to an external hard drive, and I put the edited pics on CDs and DVDs. I
label the discs according to the subject of the pics that they contain, and I delete the originals on the computer that I upload the originals to.

I never use online storage.

 

[Atlas722]

P.S.: I disconnect my external hard drive from my computer when I'm through using it, and I hide it in a location that I can remember.

 

[Pooh2]

I may be in the minority, I but I still do photos albums with actual prints! (as well as backup harddrive)

 

[wekhogan]

I have an external 2Tb hard drive, and I use Crashplan online service. So far, no issues with Crashplan. I had tried Carbonite, but a crappy, useless service for anyone with more than a couple hundred Gb of data.

 

[BigKids]

Backups are a must! I recently found out the hard way during our last trip to WDW a month ago. After our first full morning at the parks, we returned to the BoardWalk Villas to receive a delivery of groceries about 3pm. I downloaded the 117 images I already took from my trusty Nikon D7100 to my laptop. Then I downloaded the images to my 2TB portable hard drive ~$160 (highly recommend). Images safely stored away on both the laptop and HD, I placed the laptop on the sofa table and opened the slide show to take a look at the images. Next to the laptop, on the sofa table, was a nice glass of wine and in the background was my 4 yr old son running around being a normal 4 year old. Next thing the wife and I know, 4 yr old accidentally bumps into sofa table, and the wine spills onto laptop keyboard. About 5 seconds later, screen turns white and laptop STOPS. FOREVER. Dad mutters several muted four-letter words, takes a deep breath, and thanks himself for backing up the images to portable HD. 4 yr old is terrified Dad is really mad, but in reality, accidents happen and we were on vacation at Disney. Hugs and confirmation that Mom and (especially) Dad were NOT mad at him later, we moved on and learned a valuable lesson not to sit your beverage next to the laptop! Moral of the story, a portable hard drive is an inexpensive way to backup images of special occasions that may otherwise be lost. I suspect the images on the laptop HD are just fine (have not attempted to take HD out yet), but the laptop is TOAST.

 

[AydensMom]

I just upload full size photos to photobucket and let them worry about server security and backups...its only $29 a year with unlimited uploads and if I ever need the original file back I can just download from them.. plus it makes posting on forums easier with convenient copy and paste feature.

Pat

 

[hakepb]

I just upload full size photos to photobucket and let them worry about server security and backups...its only $29 a year with unlimited uploads and if I ever need the original file back I can just download from them.. plus it makes posting on forums easier with convenient copy and paste feature.

Pat

You do have to contemplate the possibility that a social media type site might suddenly go bankrupt and close up shop...plus full resolution is usually not full quality.

That said, in addition to my Traditional backups, I do use a Photobucket account for forum posting and use a Flickr account as a 4th level backup (but there's no mass-restore tool, so it would be painful downloading each photo one by one)

 

[Patrick in Oregon]

This thread could also be called "Photo Doomsday-Preppers." Reading these responses makes want to back up my back ups.



I like:
1TB portable HDD
CDs and prints

I don't have a viable option to backup on site currently. A photography friend of mine had their iPad with a memory card adapter to back up their photos on site. I didn't know such an adapter existed for Apple.

 

[poohfriend77]

This thread could also be called "Photo Doomsday-Preppers." Reading these responses makes want to back up my back ups.



I like:
1TB portable HDD
CDs and prints

I don't have a viable option to backup on site currently. A photography friend of mine had their iPad with a memory card adapter to back up their photos on site. I didn't know such an adapter existed for Apple.

It's like the photography equivalent of the people with huge stockpiles of Spam and guns for when the zombies come.

I was about to post a similar question when I found this thread. We currently have photos on multiple computer hard drives, plus an external hard drive. A lot (but not all) of our photos are burned to DVD (and given to my mom, so stored off-site) or uploaded to snapfish (for printing purposes... I know this is not ideal as a backup method if we ever needed to restore the original images).

Right now we're looking at smugmug and zenfolio "cloud" storage. We don't mind paying a yearly fee (under $100), but we want something to hold full-quality images and video, and be able to access from multiple devices, and invite family members to view albums (without giving them full access to our whole account), etc. Anyone have experience with either of these?

 

[egritz]

Laptop - but I clear this out regularly to keep my drive running quickly, 2 externals (I alternate which one each time). Monthly I back up to DVDs or BluRays and make 3 copies (1 for us, 1 for my in-laws, 1 for my parents - since most pictures are of the kiddo).