Running out of HDD space, what are my options?

[Village Idiot]

The Drobo, while very nice, is out of my price range right now.

I was looking at Best Buy and saw some 1.5TB drives. I don't know the difference between the Essnetial and Home Edition. I think there is even a World edition but the price is so great, what would be best?

The 500GB I have now is the essential? There was also a hard drive enclosure for $60 that seemed really nice. I could get an internal desktop drive, like a $250 2TB and then use that once I am able to move to a desktop then get another drive as the backup to that.

~Michael~

I have the slightly older version of this:
Newegg.com - HP MediaSmart EX490, Windows Home Server w/ Intel Celeron 2.2 Ghz 2GB DDR2 1TB HDD installed (three open bay), 4 USB & 1 eSATA expansion ports , Mac Compatible - Server Systems

It's the one of the best things I've ever spent money one. Do some research on Windows Home Server and you'll see why.

 

[adamcoupe]

Hi

With 1TB external drives at less than £90 then just keep adding them to your system after implementing some sort of priorisation system. Also backup key work to DVD - never trust HD's completely!

Adam
Commercial Photography - Portfolio - Adam Coupe Photography

 

[Romphotog]

Huh? Don't quite understand this part. Purposely degrading a digital negative is ok because it isn't as good as a 35mm negative?

You misunderstood me. I was pointing out that 35mm, slide film, and medium format or full format film has much higher res and MPs than digital, about 96mp. Again, how many APS size sensors or full format digital cameras are there? Ever heard of crop factor?

Now suppose you shot a wedding using a DSLR 10 years ago. What was the highest res? 3mps? Were you happy using it? Thus, that's what you are stuck with. You cant re-shoot the wedding even if you have a 12mp DSLR now. Going down to 6mp from 12mp max simply goes down to the max of 5 years ago, no big deal.
5-10years from now we'll be up to 24mps. So whatever is highest res now is a joke in a few years. Only film res is constant.

You only get to make that choice once.. Once the file has been reduced the data is gone and can never be recovered.

I agree. And once a wedding is shot using 3mp, 6mp, or 12mp it can never be redone even if MPs go up. Thus, the MP argument is a moot point.
BTW, isnt RAW proprietary and you need special software to process it?
jpg is far easier to work with.

 

[usayit]

no I didn't misunderstand....

I fail to see why anyone would arguing that a loosing data/quality in an image file has anything to do with the existence of film or past lower resolution cameras. That failed argument could be used to question any technological advancement...

By the way... I still shoot film... so I understand the film versus digital debate but it has zero to do with this discussion of saving space.

AND NO.. RAW is far more easier and less limiting than JPG which you fail to understand.

 

[Paparoksguitar]

If you are using RAW you must be a pro, a paid photog who makes mucho $$$ from his shots. If you make posters, large prints, etc. you might feel reducing MPs sacrifices quality. However, that is not so as a 35mm ISO100 negative, or slide film, compared to digital is 96mp. And I am sure digital won't ever go up to 96mp. Thus, using digital vs. film reduces quality as is anyway.

Huh? Don't quite understand this part. Purposely degrading a digital negative is ok because it isn't as good as a 35mm negative? I think you are there is a lack of understanding between the pros and cons of RAW versus reduced JPG files... there is a lot more going on than simply file size. Disk space is already cheap and getting cheaper each year.. You can always buy more space. It is certainly less valuable than the photos stored.

You only get to make that choice once.. Once the file has been reduced the data is gone and can never be recovered.

I agree. Always shoot raw. its just easier.

I invested in a 120 gig portable hard drive. Plug it into the USB and best part about it is i can backup all my preferences and my favorite photos on there if anything should happen to my computer.

I will say it wasn't too expensive. Certainly more expensive that just sifting through old photos an deleting them, but definitly under 100 dollars and its so much less of a hassle. I am in love with mine.

 

[iflynething]

Huh? Don't quite understand this part. Purposely degrading a digital negative is ok because it isn't as good as a 35mm negative?

You misunderstood me. I was pointing out that 35mm, slide film, and medium format or full format film has much higher res and MPs than digital, about 96mp. Again, how many APS size sensors or full format digital cameras are there? Ever heard of crop factor?

Now suppose you shot a wedding using a DSLR 10 years ago. What was the highest res? 3mps? Were you happy using it? Thus, that's what you are stuck with. You cant re-shoot the wedding even if you have a 12mp DSLR now. Going down to 6mp from 12mp max simply goes down to the max of 5 years ago, no big deal.
5-10years from now we'll be up to 24mps. So whatever is highest res now is a joke in a few years. Only film res is constant.

You only get to make that choice once.. Once the file has been reduced the data is gone and can never be recovered.

I agree. And once a wedding is shot using 3mp, 6mp, or 12mp it can never be redone even if MPs go up. Thus, the MP argument is a moot point.
BTW, isnt RAW proprietary and you need special software to process it?
jpg is far easier to work with.

Would you buy a Ford Pinto if you had the money for a Lamborghini?

No, well I wouldn't. My point is that is then and this is now. 12 MP is plenty enough but why shoot with less quality of an image just to save space. Just because you have the capability to shoot lower resolution because that's what is was doesn't mean you should. Plus, if you are shooting professionally, you're not going to shoot JPEG to "save space"

There is no arguing that.

~Michael~

 

[Darkhunter139]

I dont see why you would not shoot at max res...storage is so cheap now. You can get 1TB hard drives for under $100. I am planning on getting an external hard drive soon to backup my photos.

 

[usayit]

I guess what Romphotog is trying to say is that lower than camera max resolution and jpeg is good enough therefore save the disk space. What is wrong with that statement is that lower resolution/jpeg isn't good enough for most people here. Especially when most of us have an investment in equipment and want to squeeze every little bit out of the equipment.

I divide my photos into two groups; snapshots of me just having fun and photos that I am dedicate attention to. The fun snaps are saved as JPEG at the highest quality for prosperity. The rest make it into the archive at their MAX. Anything less is like enlarging a 35mm negative frame to a 4x6 and throwing away the negative itself. This is all done in post and saving disk space has nothing to do with it.

Never the less... the camera is glued at full resolution / raw. There is absolutely no reason not too start with the best image file possible at the beginning of your workflow.

 

[Village Idiot]

You misunderstood me. I was pointing out that 35mm, slide film, and medium format or full format film has much higher res and MPs than digital, about 96mp. Again, how many APS size sensors or full format digital cameras are there? Ever heard of crop factor?

What does crop factor have to do with the number of pixels? It's just the size of pixels in comparison with other formats that it really affects when looking at number of pixels per sensor.

And 96mp? That seems like a very generous number. I think the FBI concluded that 35mm film is about equal to a 16mp image.

SWGIT Guidelines for Field Applications of Imaging Technologies in the Criminal Justice System

 

[Village Idiot]

I dont see why you would not shoot at max res...storage is so cheap now. You can get 1TB hard drives for under $100. I am planning on getting an external hard drive soon to backup my photos.

I shot a concert about two weeks ago. I had almost 20GB of images. That was roughly 650 images. Given, most of them are going down the toilet as there were strobes and strobes can really play hell with timing, but how many people own a camera where 20GB of space gets you only 650 images? I know on my 8mp 30D when I put a clean 8GB card in it shows 999 in the image counter and not 250 like on my new snapshotter.

 

[Romphotog]

And 96mp? That seems like a very generous number. I think the FBI concluded that 35mm film is about equal to a 16mp image.

I wouldnt give a goat's excrement for what the FBI concluded... much less in 2001.
Back in 2001 16mp might've been a fantastically futuristic number. There even wasnt a 16mp camera back then. Even today, how many P&S are 16mp, DSLRs are up to what? So comparing a res of a 35mm film to what they imagined would be is loco and silly. 35mm film is 96mp if all other factors are the same. Res of film does not increase, it is constant.
BTW, what can you do with a 24mp camera that you cant with a 12mp one?

Did you know that in 1975 a 10mb hard disk drive was considered so large that it was a fantasy. At P.C.Richards I was told that computer RAM wouldnt go up to 128mb for many years... that was in 1995. And the HDD was 850mb. Just because I could get a 500gb HDD today, does not mean I should stuff it up with pics, MP3, AVIs, etc.

 

[iflynething]

I dont see why you would not shoot at max res...storage is so cheap now. You can get 1TB hard drives for under $100. I am planning on getting an external hard drive soon to backup my photos.

Get it now! Well I am going to have to eat my words since I still have yet to get mine!

I guess what Romphotog is trying to say is that lower than camera max resolution and jpeg is good enough therefore save the disk space. What is wrong with that statement is that lower resolution/jpeg isn't good enough for most people here. Especially when most of us have an investment in equipment and want to squeeze every little bit out of the equipment.

I divide my photos into two groups; snapshots of me just having fun and photos that I am dedicate attention to. The fun snaps are saved as JPEG at the highest quality for prosperity. The rest make it into the archive at their MAX. Anything less is like enlarging a 35mm negative frame to a 4x6 and throwing away the negative itself. This is all done in post and saving disk space has nothing to do with it.

Never the less... the camera is glued at full resolution / raw. There is absolutely no reason not too start with the best image file possible at the beginning of your workflow.

I wish I could do that. The way I sort my pictures, they're just in categories. There are no just snapshots. I have family/friends and subcategories under that, trips, etc, but they all go under pictures and I don't discriminate on snapshots and definite keepers.

I dont see why you would not shoot at max res...storage is so cheap now. You can get 1TB hard drives for under $100. I am planning on getting an external hard drive soon to backup my photos.

I shot a concert about two weeks ago. I had almost 20GB of images. That was roughly 650 images. Given, most of them are going down the toilet as there were strobes and strobes can really play hell with timing, but how many people own a camera where 20GB of space gets you only 650 images? I know on my 8mp 30D when I put a clean 8GB card in it shows 999 in the image counter and not 250 like on my new snapshotter.

Well most people don't but you get what you pay for, image quality.

And 96mp? That seems like a very generous number. I think the FBI concluded that 35mm film is about equal to a 16mp image.

I wouldnt give a goat's excrement for what the FBI concluded... much less in 2001.
Back in 2001 16mp might've been a fantastically futuristic number. There even wasnt a 16mp camera back then. Even today, how many P&S are 16mp, DSLRs are up to what? So comparing a res of a 35mm film to what they imagined would be is loco and silly. 35mm film is 96mp if all other factors are the same. Res of film does not increase, it is constant.
BTW, what can you do with a 24mp camera that you cant with a 12mp one?

Did you know that in 1975 a 10mb hard disk drive was considered so large that it was a fantasy. At P.C.Richards I was told that computer RAM wouldnt go up to 128mb for many years... that was in 1995. And the HDD was 850mb. Just because I could get a 500gb HDD today, does not mean I should stuff it up with pics, MP3, AVIs, etc.

That's a very interesting number. I was reading in a magazine about older thing, cameras and such and about the 32mb card. That would cover 1, maybe 2 of todays RAW files!

~Michael~

 

[Romphotog]

Could some explain to me if you could get a 24mp camera in 5 years what can you do with it that you cannot with today's 8, 10, 12mps?
Will sensor size also increase? Will all SLRs be full frame?
Likewise, if HDD will be 10TB, will you stuff them up with 50mb RAW shots instead of 2mb jpegs?

 

[Village Idiot]

And 96mp? That seems like a very generous number. I think the FBI concluded that 35mm film is about equal to a 16mp image.

I wouldnt give a goat's excrement for what the FBI concluded... much less in 2001.
Back in 2001 16mp might've been a fantastically futuristic number. There even wasnt a 16mp camera back then. Even today, how many P&S are 16mp, DSLRs are up to what? So comparing a res of a 35mm film to what they imagined would be is loco and silly. 35mm film is 96mp if all other factors are the same. Res of film does not increase, it is constant.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_megapixels_would_it_take_to_equal_a_35mm_film_maximum_quality
http://pic.templetons.com/brad/photo/pixels.html
http://technicalconclusions.wordpress.com/2007/01/05/photography-digital-vs-film/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_versus_film_photography

Most every answer I find says about 20MP.

BTW, what can you do with a 24mp camera that you cant with a 12mp one?

Did you know that in 1975 a 10mb hard disk drive was considered so large that it was a fantasy. At P.C.Richards I was told that computer RAM wouldnt go up to 128mb for many years... that was in 1995. And the HDD was 850mb. Just because I could get a 500gb HDD today, does not mean I should stuff it up with pics, MP3, AVIs, etc.

Print larger, clearer prints. Plus a larger sized file printed at a small size will show less apparent noise. Downsizing a digital photo also inceases apparent sharpness. Would you rather enlarge a file so that the details become fuzzier? Plus I can crop a good deal and not worry about having a digital file that's too small. I shot a portrait orientation photo and cropped it to landscape and still have a file that's about 3,500 pixels on the long side.

I have a server that after my 3rd HDD arrives, will have 2.75TB of total space. It also provides redudancy and backups. The space will eventually get used. What's the point in having a smaller drive where you have to constantly hunt for space?

 

[Village Idiot]

Could some explain to me if you could get a 24mp camera in 5 years what can you do with it that you cannot with today's 8, 10, 12mps?
Will sensor size also increase? Will all SLRs be full frame?
Likewise, if HDD will be 10TB, will you stuff them up with 50mb RAW shots instead of 2mb jpegs?

You can get a 24mp camera now. I have a 21. There's also 50mp cameras.