Running out of HDD space, what are my options?

iflynething · Dec 31, 2009

I have a problem. Currently I am maxed out the 500GB HDD in my laptop. I have it partitioned out and plenty on video/music and on my main boot drive but on pictures, I have a little over 17GB on my pictures partition which includes about 50,000 pictures.

I have a 500GB WD external that I back up everything to and since it didn't have the OS on it, I have moved non needed files from my laptop and kept them on the external HDD and they are deleted off my laptop.

I'm running out of space though and don't know what to do. I just got back from a mission trip where I documented everything that was done and shot 17GB of photos, almost 900 pictures.

I do not have any pictures that I can delete off the laptop and just keep on the external since I only have 9GB on the external.

I will be making some money on the CD's for the mission trip and some other things so I"m going to get a 2TB external for backing up. The only problem with that is, I like to have everything with me. I never know when I might want to show a particular picture and it not be there because I didn't have room. I started with a 320GB drive on the laptop and that QUICKLY filled up, moved to the 500 internal with the 500GB external, but I don't know what my options are from here.

I would love to upgrade to a full desktop with a terabyte (or 2) inside and have that 2TB external right beside it and just have my laptop for "showing" or just for temporary storage while out shooting, but I can't invest in a desktop right now.

What can I do?

~Michael~

1limited92 · Dec 31, 2009

With External HD's getting as inexpensive as they are now I would just consider buying another one to shuffle around and store some photos on to clear up some room until you can get your LARGE TB hard drives. Seems to me that would be the quickest and easiest way to go about it.

mrdemin · Dec 31, 2009

External harddrives are pretty portable, my 500gb wd passport is pretty small. And since you don't mention music or videos being as important, you can have that on the external hdd. Of course you can run disk cleanup, or defrag, but whats a few gigs going to do for you? nothing.
Unfortunately the biggest notebook hdd I see is 640gb, this doesn't do you much good either. You say you'd like a desktop, but you can't take that around with you, so the stuff you would keep on that you can keep on the external drive instead and just plug it in when you're home.

Josh66 · Dec 31, 2009

You have two options...

Back up & delete.

Buy a bigger hard drive.

Those are really the only two options I can think of...

EJKelehan · Dec 31, 2009

you could buy a 500gb external drive, they are pretty small, and velcro it to the backside of your screen, using a 6"ish cable to connect the computer to the drive, many people do this with there memory card readers...its easily removable, but also right where you need it {link} you could probably do a slightly cleaner installation then the person in the tutorial does, with a shorter cable and such.

Big Mike · Dec 31, 2009

Do you really need to keep a copy of all your images on your laptop's HD? It's good that you use an external for backup. But you could get another one to use as 'storage', keeping the existing one for backup.

This is where a program like Lightroom is really great. You can store photos on your external drive, then 'import' them into Lightroom on your laptop. Once imported, you can still see the images and even work on them in LR, without being tethered to the external drive. You will need to have the drive connected to 'export' the images though.

Overread · Dec 31, 2009

If you are going to start using more external harddrives (which appears to be your only valid move unless you find the funds to upgrade to a large PC or laptop) you have to get an organised sorting system setup early. That will help you avoid confusion later on.

I would say get a 1Terrabyte or larger external drive and use that to hold all your photos. Then I would backup your keepers to your current external drive and to your PC. That way you are able to keep a storage of your photos in your larger external whilst also keeping your keepers safe in 3 places (your laptop and current 500GB external)

ScottsdaleImages · Dec 31, 2009

I agree, add extra external storage! At least 1TB! Move (archive) everything you haven't looked at or touched in the last 2 months to the new drive. Keep your Notebook HD clear for current work and back it up to the 500gb ext.

BTW, CDW.com has a Lacie 1TB ext HD for $97.99. Great Buy. (That's my day job..lol)

iflynething · Dec 31, 2009

1limited92 said:
With External HD's getting as inexpensive as they are now I would just consider buying another one to shuffle around and store some photos on to clear up some room until you can get your LARGE TB hard drives. Seems to me that would be the quickest and easiest way to go about it.

ScottsdaleImages said:
I agree, add extra external storage! At least 1TB! Move (archive) everything you haven't looked at or touched in the last 2 months to the new drive. Keep your Notebook HD clear for current work and back it up to the 500gb ext.

BTW, CDW.com has a Lacie 1TB ext HD for $97.99. Great Buy. (That's my day job..lol)

That's kinda what I was doing with the 500GB. Since there is no OS on there, I actually HAD the room to store extra photos I wasn't using. Just small folders that I never looked at and never really used. I have about 30,000 dance comepition photos on there that I didn't need on my laptop. There's just there for archival purposes. I freed up ALOT of space, but now I'm down to not alot of room. I might just get the 2TB one (even the 1 would do for now) and continue to put on there the photos I haven't looked at in a couple of months and don't seem myself using in a while, either. That would free up alot of space on the laptop HDD.

Thanks for the link on the 1TB one, I think I might more consider the 1TB one. Another possiblity is an internal one (cheaper) and just get a housing for it and Firewire cable for it.

mrdemin said:
External harddrives are pretty portable, my 500gb wd passport is pretty small. And since you don't mention music or videos being as important, you can have that on the external hdd. Of course you can run disk cleanup, or defrag, but whats a few gigs going to do for you? nothing.
Unfortunately the biggest notebook hdd I see is 640gb, this doesn't do you much good either. You say you'd like a desktop, but you can't take that around with you, so the stuff you would keep on that you can keep on the external drive instead and just plug it in when you're home.

I didn't know 640 was the largest. I think on Dell, though, the 500 is a big as you can go. Even if I got a 640, I would still be in the same predicament very soon! I have disk cleaned up, and defraged as much as I could and that cleaned up a good amount of stuff, but not NEAR as much as I really need.

O|||||||O said:
You have two options...

Back up & delete.

Buy a bigger hard drive.

Those are really the only two options I can think of...

I'm going to do both! Bigger external hard drive and delete off the laptop!

EJKelehan said:
you could buy a 500gb external drive, they are pretty small, and velcro it to the backside of your screen, using a 6"ish cable to connect the computer to the drive, many people do this with there memory card readers...its easily removable, but also right where you need it {link} you could probably do a slightly cleaner installation then the person in the tutorial does, with a shorter cable and such.

Thats a possibility. The 500GB external I have now, is HUGE! I'm not sure it would stay back there, though. Thanks for the link though

Big Mike said:
Do you really need to keep a copy of all your images on your laptop's HD? It's good that you use an external for backup. But you could get another one to use as 'storage', keeping the existing one for backup.

This is where a program like Lightroom is really great. You can store photos on your external drive, then 'import' them into Lightroom on your laptop. Once imported, you can still see the images and even work on them in LR, without being tethered to the external drive. You will need to have the drive connected to 'export' the images though.

Big Mike, thanks. I don't really need a copy of EVERYTHING. I just need more recent ones I guess. As I said above, I have already "archived" (but still readily available) 30,000+ photos to my external, pictures I don't use really anymore and it would be no problem to just plug it up and work if needed. Unfortunatly, I do not have Lightroom. My other photographer friend uses Lightroom and I love the workflow. Need to make a adjustment, it makes like a "shadow" copy which is just going off the original file but doesn't take up anymore space. I know about Lightroom, but is it a separate program I could bu?

Overread said:
If you are going to start using more external harddrives (which appears to be your only valid move unless you find the funds to upgrade to a large PC or laptop) you have to get an organised sorting system setup early. That will help you avoid confusion later on.

I would say get a 1Terrabyte or larger external drive and use that to hold all your photos. Then I would backup your keepers to your current external drive and to your PC. That way you are able to keep a storage of your photos in your larger external whilst also keeping your keepers safe in 3 places (your laptop and current 500GB external)

I have an organization system that I understand. I use SyncToy as my backup tool. On my backup, I have "Pictures" which syncs with the "Pictures" folder on my laptop. Then I have "Other Pictures" on the external that the SyncToy doesn't touch. As far as it knows, it's not even there. That way, I have current pictures backed up all the time whenever I run ST, but also those archived photos that are just there.

icassell · Dec 31, 2009

Add outboard storage (my vote). I now have 2 WD 500GB drives and I just bought a 2TB drive (with Raid 1). My 500GB drives are mirrors of each other, even though they don't have the RAID software. I just plan on adding drives as needed. I keep almost nothing on my laptop longer than a week or so anymore (I don't have a separate desktop computer). Even without my HDD hooked up, I can browse thumbnails of my images to a degree through my LR2 catalog.

iflynething · Dec 31, 2009

icassell said:
Add outboard storage (my vote). I now have 2 WD 500GB drives and I just bought a 2TB drive (with Raid 1). My 500GB drives are mirrors of each other, even though they don't have the RAID software. I just plan on adding drives as needed. I keep almost nothing on my laptop longer than a week or so anymore (I don't have a separate desktop computer). Even without my HDD hooked up, I can browse thumbnails of my images to a degree through my LR2 catalog.

I never really fully understood the concept of RAID but I'm sure I could figure it out.

If I only had LR

~Michael~

icassell · Dec 31, 2009

You can get LR3 Beta for FREE now ... you will have to pay for it in April when it becomes product, however. This can give you a chance to try it.

Adobe Labs - Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3

If you are a student or an educator, you can buy LR for $99

As for RAID, I'm no computer geek and there are several RAID options but RAID1 just does a direct mirror of your drive on a second drive -- in case one fails.

iflynething · Dec 31, 2009

icassell said:
You can get LR3 Beta for FREE now ... you will have to pay for it in April when it becomes product, however. This can give you a chance to try it.

Adobe Labs - Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3

If you are a student or an educator, you can buy LR for $99

As for RAID, I'm no computer geek and there are several RAID options but RAID1 just does a direct mirror of your drive on a second drive -- in case one fails.

I will have to download it, thanks.

$100 isn't bad. I'll have to get it once it's actually out.

Is RAID any different than using a backup software? Seems to me it's doing the exact same thing

~Michael~

icassell · Dec 31, 2009

iflynething said:
Is RAID any different than using a backup software? Seems to me it's doing the exact same thing

~Michael~

RAID1 is transparent. You don't do anything and it automatically saves your data in two places simultaneously.

This is the one I bought:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VPKRKW/ref=oss_T15_product

usayit · Dec 31, 2009

iflynething said:
Is RAID any different than using a backup software? Seems to me it's doing the exact same thing

Two completely different things. RAID is for high availability and Backups are for recoverability. You really should have both but I highly recommend placing a preference on implementing backups first. Being able to recover your data even at the expense of waiting for them to be restored is very important.

This question comes up all the time and almost always gets answered incorrectly. RAID is not a replacement for backups. The least complex setup that I can think of would involve two mirrored drives with a copy on a third external drive (which can be stored at a physically different location).

* If a single drive in the mirror dies... no worry.. replace it and re-establish the mirror as soon as possible
* Any snafu on the users part can be easily restored from the third disk backup.
* House burns down, you have a third disk as backup
* Any corruption that can occur (and replicated within the mirror) can be recovered from the third disk backup.