Storage

[endurodog]

Hopefully I'm putting this in the correct forum, if not let me know.

I'm filling up my hard drive rapidly. Deleted lots of stuff but lots I want to keep. I have a 970GB hard drive now. Wondering what guys are doing for more storage. External hard drive? Bigger internal? Other options. Thanks in advance.

 

[Overread]

When I put together my new computer I put a 2TB harddrive in just for photos (another 2TB for games/other stuff and then the 500GB single drive for core programs and windows). So I keep the bulk of my data internal; however I can then back-up to external drives (got a 1TB at present, though will eventually have to either get another or go for a 2TB).

You can use RAID setups if you want and you can even keep more than one back-up copy. The more back-ups you have the better (esp if you've the facilities to keep one off-site to protect against fire or theft). Of course the more you want the more its going to cost you in money and (if you're not efficient) time. So you've got to balance you needs, income and time to get the best choice for you.


I would also note that if you can't afford lots of digital options, or you don't want to, get some prints done. Sure its not the same as the RAW file, but it does give you a hard-copy back-up of your photos (plus it gets you printing and not just web-displaying

 

[RichieT]

I filled a 1tb external drive with photo's last year and got a another 3tb drive to continue backups. A couple of weeks ago, I went looking for some old photos' and when I hooked up the old drive I got nothing, nada, zilch. It came up that the drive was empty! Fortunately, I had everything backed up on DVD's as well as still on my old computer. I wound up transferring about 50 DVD's to the new drive. Point is, don't rely on just one backup. Hard drives are pretty cheap, both internal and external. DVD and CD are all right but they may deteriorate after a number of years. I haven't seen it yet, but I re record my discs every 10 years to be safe. I also don't keep the discs near my computer so in case of fire or flood there's a better chance one copy survives.

 

[shefjr]

I bought an iMac less than a year ago and filled up a whole TB of memory. What I have done for now is used an 1TB external hard drive that I manually save photos to. I also have a 2TB external hard drive that I use that is connected to time machine. I'm gonna eventually grab another 1TB hard drive to duplicate my other 1TB just because I have had issues where the hard drive is empty. I'm not sure the way I do this is best but, I'm not really aware of a better way.

 

[Derrel]

I filled a 3TB drive, then another 3 TB, and am now on the same model, but it's the new 4TB model.

Amazon.com: wd my book 4 tb

Whoa!!!!!!! NOW they are offering a 6 TB model!

 

[shefjr]

I filled a 3TB drive, then another 3 TB, and am now on the same model, but it's the new 4TB model.

Amazon.com: wd my book 4 tb

Whoa!!!!!!! NOW they are offering a 6 TB model!

Do you have a secondary backup for those full drives? I saw those larger storage drives but, didn't want to buy them in case they failed. That's a lot more to lose if one of the bigger drives fails.

 

[Derrel]

Do you have a secondary backup for those full drives? I saw those larger storage drives but, didn't want to buy them in case they failed. That's a lot more to lose if one of the bigger drives fails.

I have been backing up onto FujiFilm brand DVD-R discs since 2005; before that FujiFilm CD-ROM discs, two sets of each disc. Now that I am up to 24 megapixel files, I have been filling up a primary and secondary hard drive, since DVD-R discs are just so small that they are kind of a PITA. However, I am still burning DVD-R discs of my very best/most important images because frankly, I trust 50 or 100 individual,separate,discrete DVD-R discs MORE than I do any one, single hard drive.

 

[D-B-J]

My process is this:

1TB HD in my MacBook Pro, which is where I do all my work. A 2TB HD for time-machine backups. And 1TB HD's for a backup of every image from paid shoots, both edited and unedited. That way I have 3 copies. And I can keep the load down on my MacBook by keeping only the "keepers" locally and saving the total set on an external.

Jake

 

[snerd]

Wow! I can see why I'm not progressing faster in my photography skills........................ I'm not taking enough pictures!!! I have a 1.5TB in my desktop, and have 1.1TB still free. After a little over a year and a half!!! I have a 500GB Maxtor external drive for backups, and a WD Passport 2TB that I really haven't done much with!

 

[endurodog]

This is great info, thanks guys!!!!!

 

[lambertpix]

My desktop has an SSD boot / app drive, a mirrored pair of 2TB drives for photos, and another 1TB drive for misc data files. Backups & whatnot are on a Drobo 5N -- currently stuffed with 2x4TB + 3x3TB drives. I just ordered two more 4TB drives for the Drobo, and when I get done swapping out two of the 3TB drives, they'll go into the desktop to replace the 2TB drives, as they're just about full.

 

[AceCo55]

I just bought another three external hard drives (this time 3TB). I now have about 15 external drives.
Every photo is on three separate drives - two kept at home and one off-site.
Each group of three drives are for different categories:
Sport (6 drives)
Documents
Non-sports photos
Video

 

[bratkinson]

Drives are cheap, and getting cheaper by the day. It's far easier to install a 2nd hard drive in your computer and move your pictures there, freeing up room on the primary drive.

For what it's worth, my main 'photo storage' is currently on a 1TB drive that is almost full. I have a clone of that drive 10 feet away and a copy of that and My Documents on a new, external 3TB drive offsite, that replaced the 1TB. I have to upgrade the internal 1TBs soon...like...before year end. It took a long time to fill up my old 80GB drive when my camera was only a 3mp Canon G3. But the RAW and 'completed' JPG files from the 5Diii eat up space very quickly...and that's only the 'keepers'.

And some folks think they absolutely must have more than 40mp in a camera...They'll be needing 10TB drives a year later!

 

[D-B-J]

Drives are cheap, and getting cheaper by the day. It's far easier to install a 2nd hard drive in your computer and move your pictures there, freeing up room on the primary drive.

For what it's worth, my main 'photo storage' is currently on a 1TB drive that is almost full. I have a clone of that drive 10 feet away and a copy of that and My Documents on a new, external 3TB drive offsite, that replaced the 1TB. I have to upgrade the internal 1TBs soon...like...before year end. It took a long time to fill up my old 80GB drive when my camera was only a 3mp Canon G3. But the RAW and 'completed' JPG files from the 5Diii eat up space very quickly...and that's only the 'keepers'.

And some folks think they absolutely must have more than 40mp in a camera...They'll be needing 10TB drives a year later!

Forreal. I opened an edited/photoshopped file yesterday from my D800 and it was 287mb.... For one image!

 

[shefjr]

Drives are cheap, and getting cheaper by the day. It's far easier to install a 2nd hard drive in your computer and move your pictures there, freeing up room on the primary drive.

For what it's worth, my main 'photo storage' is currently on a 1TB drive that is almost full. I have a clone of that drive 10 feet away and a copy of that and My Documents on a new, external 3TB drive offsite, that replaced the 1TB. I have to upgrade the internal 1TBs soon...like...before year end. It took a long time to fill up my old 80GB drive when my camera was only a 3mp Canon G3. But the RAW and 'completed' JPG files from the 5Diii eat up space very quickly...and that's only the 'keepers'.

And some folks think they absolutely must have more than 40mp in a camera...They'll be needing 10TB drives a year later!

Forreal. I opened an edited/photoshopped file yesterday from my D800 and it was 287mb.... For one image!

I have the same problem. On top of that I use my gopro hero 3+ almost daily and that is chewing up a lot of memory.