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11/01/2010 04:56:13 PM · #1
My computer is destroyed from a virus. A friends outer is dead also and two years of her pictures are offer! Gone. So we are both wondering, perhaps our hard drive is not the best place to store our digital pictures.
So the question is, where do you store your digital pictures?
Thanks!
Mom
11/01/2010 05:03:52 PM · #2
It's hard to keep up with your multiple threads. To get the best and most replies, I suggest consolidating your similar queries in one thread.

Most people back up their digital data on CDs, DVDs, additional and/or external hard drives, and even pay for online data storage at sites like Mozilla. I had a total failure of one of my hard drives and I am glad that I had most of the data backed up on DVDs.
11/01/2010 05:30:09 PM · #3
I use lots of floppy disks and use winzip to span it across multiple volumes. One raw file only takes about 9 disks. A wedding takes considerably more.
11/01/2010 05:49:33 PM · #4
Digital Process:
1. Create directory called Images\YYYYMMDD_EventName
2. Create "RAW" directory for RAW files and/or "JPEG" directory for jpeg files
3. Download pictures from card to these directories (don't delete yet)
4. Go through images and flag for processing
5. Create another directory called "Masters"
6. Process images saving your PSD files to the masters directory
7. Create another directory called "Prints"
8. Create another directory called "4x6" under prints to save all your processed 4x6 images
9. Create another directory called "8x10" under prints to save all your processed 8x10 images
10. Create another directory called "Web" under prints to save all your processed web images
11. Burn entire directory to DVD or DVDs.
12. Delete images from cards.

Or just do 1, 2, 3, 11, 12

Basically, download to computer, burn to DVDs, delete from cards. Make sure you've verified the DVD burns. There's usually a setting in the DVD burning software to verify the copied files. This takes a bit longer since the software reads the entire disk.

Otherwise, when you get home from your 2 weeks in China only to find the disks you bought were crap and didn't copy correctly, you'll be kicking yourself for not verifying the burn.
11/01/2010 05:55:31 PM · #5
To be honest, you can buy a 1TB (1000GB!!!) external hard drive for about £50 on ebay.
So cheap for the amount of memory
11/01/2010 06:00:50 PM · #6
Wow, I thought my process was a pain in the butt.

1. Import images into Aperture
2. Delete bad photos
3. Do what ever it is I need to the photo, making copies as needed for different edits/print sizes
4. Daily back up image vault to external hard drive enclosure (is actually two drives set up as a mirror)
5. Once a month go to bank, get external drive from safe deposit box, come home and copy important stuff to drive (includes Aperture image vault)
6. Super paranoid so take external drive back to bank right after transfer is complete.

This gives me one copy on my computer and more or less two copies on external at home and another one at an off sight secure location.
11/01/2010 06:38:32 PM · #7
1) File Server with RAID 5 disk array
2) USB External hard drive that does a backup every Sunday of the RAID in case I actually loose my RAID.
3) They are of course on my Mac in Aperture, which is also backed up with Time Machine (to another firewire external drive) and also there is a Vault Backup system in Aperture that I backup to yet another Firewire external hard drive.

So basically I have them in 5 places, and the file server is actually in a different corner of the house than my den so it would have to be a complete house burn down to loose anything.

BTW I was a network Admin for about 15 years ... so redundancy is kind of built into me now a days.

Message edited by author 2010-11-01 18:40:04.
11/01/2010 06:50:38 PM · #8
Originally posted by Aarthek:

it would have to be a complete house burn down to lose anything....


Which would be my biggest fear. I need to implement some sort of offsite backup. The former president of my camera club has a pair of portable 1 TB hard drives and keeps one in a safety deposit box and swaps them monthly. And of course there are online sites that offer bulk storage. (Smugmug has their vault for instance).

And to address an earlier comment, DVDs are not a feasible solution in my opinion. They have a relatively short shelf life (only a few years of any sort of reliability with the ones you burn at home), they are easily damaged, and they don't hold much. (500 GB of pictures is roughly 80-85 disks assuming 6 GB per disk). Which reminds me...where did I put those dozen DVDs I burnt? (because I did try this and now that I think about it maybe I should put them on my NAS)

11/01/2010 07:39:08 PM · #9
Originally posted by Simms:

I use lots of floppy disks and use winzip to span it across multiple volumes. One raw file only takes about 9 disks. A wedding takes considerably more.


Made me laugh. I remember those days...
11/01/2010 07:43:35 PM · #10
Originally posted by yakatme:

It's hard to keep up with your multiple threads. To get the best and most replies, I suggest consolidating your similar queries in one thread.

Most people back up their digital data on CDs, DVDs, additional and/or external hard drives, and even pay for online data storage at sites like Mozilla. I had a total failure of one of my hard drives and I am glad that I had most of the data backed up on DVDs.


I can't believe that many people still rely on DVDs.

I'm sorting myself out after a lapse and have local copies on two computers and an external drive that is destined for my parents' house - cheaper geographic remote backup than a bank vault. More than that and I have bigger issues than data loss...


11/01/2010 07:44:33 PM · #11
Originally posted by momsince1980:

My computer is destroyed from a virus. A friends outer is dead also and two years of her pictures are offer! Gone. So we are both wondering, perhaps our hard drive is not the best place to store our digital pictures.
So the question is, where do you store your digital pictures?
Thanks!
Mom


Most likely your data is still there even though the virus(or whatever) has screwed the OS... Very, very, very few viruses actually destroy your image files.
11/01/2010 07:45:32 PM · #12
Originally posted by Simms:

I use lots of floppy disks and use winzip to span it across multiple volumes. One raw file only takes about 9 disks. A wedding takes considerably more.


I can't believe that everyone just left this alone.. It made me smile.
11/01/2010 07:50:51 PM · #13
online storage.
11/01/2010 08:00:36 PM · #14
1. Internal hard drives 3x1TB and 1x250MB. Redundant backups. I bought my internal drives at Ramjet.com.
2. External hard drive 1x1TB for Time Machine. Will expand to 2TB in a few months.
3. Dropbox for final versions sharing. Dropbox works GREAT for grabbing images from online storage and showing on Dropbox app on iPhone. I love my iPhone 3GS.
4. MobileMe gallery for sharing slide shows and videos.
5. Carbonite for unlimited online (cloud) storage. Auto backup of everything processed from RAW files (not the RAW files). I like their system. Idiot proof! (Helpful for someone old, like me.) The constraint is the upload speed of most high speed Internet service providers. That said, it works in the background, so even though it may take many days (weeks) to complete the first backup, once it's done, everything works seamlessly.
6. Aperture 3 vaults for storage of all activity on Aperture.

My old files from 2003 to 2006 are on DVDs and CDs. While they have not deteriorated, they won't last forever.

Message edited by author 2010-11-01 20:26:46.
11/01/2010 08:05:33 PM · #15
I use Adobe Bridge to download images and use it's copy function to save a copy of each individual image to my Netgear NAS which is running 1 Tb drives and X-RAID so volume can be increased without reformatting. The NAS also has software to automatically backup files from anywhere on the network which I use to backup my photo workspace. The only drawback is that it is not off site but that could be technically done.

I will have no problem buying another NAS when this one fills up because keywords and all that don't work if the images are on DVDs! I have two large boxes of image DVDs and I can't tell you how I dread going to look for anything in there. Next time I will buy a new NAS, plug it into the router and be done with it for a couple more years.
11/02/2010 12:11:19 PM · #16
For those with zero budget, adrive-dot-com offers 50G free and has a mac/pc desktop client...
11/02/2010 01:49:55 PM · #17
What is a NAS?
Thankyou everyone for your help.
11/02/2010 01:57:52 PM · #18
I use an external hard drive from panasonic, really great stuff.
11/02/2010 02:11:36 PM · #19
Originally posted by momsince1980:

What is a NAS?
Thankyou everyone for your help.


Network Attached Storage

Generally a couple of hard drives in a different physical location than your main computer connected via a local network (although typically users have the NAS next to their main PC).

The only problem with NAS (I use one myself) is that should the house get burgled or hit by meteorite and the computer and NAS both go, then you would need an additional off site backup. DVD's aren't bad but 4.5GB doesn't go far. Dual layer discs or Bluray have higher capacity for offsite backup.

Alternatively subscribe to something like Carbonite or Mozy which are online backup services which allows you to synchronise your files onto a remote server on the web. Should your PC/house fry, your files are still retreivable from the online backup.

As for your original post, just because your computer is screwed by a virus does not mean that your files are gone forever. They will still physically be on the disc. You'll just need a techie to be able to to retreive them. Even a mechanically failed hard drive can be potentially be recovered by replacing parts in the drive.

Of course, I can't discuss how the NSA can recover data from even broken platters using magnetic resonance techniques... Top Secret don't you know ;-)

Message edited by author 2010-11-02 14:13:20.
11/02/2010 04:33:12 PM · #20
My hard drive and NAS went out within two weeks of each other... lost 2008 and 2009... :(
11/02/2010 06:07:55 PM · #21
I would always recommend a pair of drives set up as a RAID 1 array (mirroring). That way if you have have a mechanical failure on a drive, you always have an exact on the fly duplicate. Given the price of massive hard drives is now less than £50 each, it would be foolish not to utilise RAID.
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