how do you store and back up your photos

[adammreef]

I just wanted to hear some ways how people store or back up their photos. Right now I have two western digital external hard drives that are 1 tb each. When my memory card is full I copy all my pictures to both hard drives then delete everything off the memory card so i can reuse it again. Is this a smart way to keep all of my pictures safe or is there any better ways? What does everyone else do?

And here is a pic of my daughter that I took from Sesame Place yesterday.

 

[Reef Bass]

I generally shoot remotely (using my laptop) and my images get saved there. Then I copy them to my desktop where I post process them. And I back them up to a 1TB MyBook. So that's 3 copies on 3 different devices. I feel reasonably safe. Though this reminds me I did shoot more pics recently and should back those up now.

Two weeks ago my desktop hard drive crashed. No longer spun up or recognized by the BIOS. Being generally well backed up, my pain was the inconvenience of complete hard drive install (new drive, OS, device drivers, software, personal files) versus the tragedy of unique data loss.

Cute shot of your daughter, btw.

 

[xtm]

Cool shot! Sesame Place?

I think you're doing a good job by having two HD's for redundancy. However if you want to be really safe, I'd start burning pictures on DVD's and store them offsite. Those two hard drives can fail in an instant.

 

[saltyj]

I agree with the offsite option that XTM points out. What happens if you have a fire/disaster in your home and you lost the HD's. I don't do photography professionally but save my family pictures on a 250g HD, but have the same issue. I just keep it in my home or in my work car.

 

[Reef Bass]

Yes, offsite storage of backups is a good idea. That's one advantage of online backup services. Your files are physically no where near your potential house fire.

 

[BlueCorn]

I have an article about this in the NANPA Current's magazine coming out in a few months but it's exclusive to that publication so I can't post it here.

Basically: Faithfully make lots of copies, at least 3. Get one of those copies in a different location; office, online, relatives house. Don't rely on a single technology for all 3. A mirrored hard disk is fine but that counts as one copy, not two. DVD's for example degrade over time. They're fine as part of the solution but you have to test them on a regular basis.

Online is a great way to get a copy out of your house but it should be a last resort. Downloading a large image library would take a long time but it's better than nothing.

Cheers

 

[Wolverine]

I have them on my desktop, which is backed up to an external harddrive (LaCie). I have a separate back up external harddrive (WD) which I hook up every few weeks. Then I also have them backed up on DVDs, which are kept at a family member's house (whenever I update these, I just reburn all of them).

 

[aquariumclown]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15647793#post15647793 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Reef Bass
I generally shoot remotely (using my laptop) and my images get saved there. Then I copy them to my desktop where I post process them. And I back them up to a 1TB MyBook. So that's 3 copies on 3 different devices. I feel reasonably safe. Though this reminds me I did shoot more pics recently and should back those up now.

Two weeks ago my desktop hard drive crashed. No longer spun up or recognized by the BIOS. Being generally well backed up, my pain was the inconvenience of complete hard drive install (new drive, OS, device drivers, software, personal files) versus the tragedy of unique data loss.

Cute shot of your daughter, btw.

Hey Ken, how do you shoot remotely? What's needed to make that work?

 

[adammreef]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15650737#post15650737 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by aquariumclown
Hey Ken, how do you shoot remotely? What's needed to make that work?

I would also be interested in hearing about this.

Doug, I look forward to reading your article, your gallery of Yosemite is absolutely beautiful. My favorite shot is the sixth one with the waterfall and rainbow.

:thumbsup:

 

[Reef Bass]

Shooting remotely is great for what I do most (take macro pics of my reef tank). I plug one end of a USB cable into my 50D and the other into my laptop on which I have installed EOS Utility which came with my camera. Nikon must have an equivalent utility / application.

When I turn on the camera, EOS Utility pops up and when I click Remote Shooting or whatever the button is labeled, basically live view happens on my laptop display. As awesome as the bright sharp excellent display on the back of my 50D is, a 15" version of what is coming through the lens (instead of 3") makes focusing and composing easier.

I can control everything (shutterspeed, aperature, ISO, exposure, etc.) except focus from my laptop. When I click the shutter release button icon, the image is saved to my laptop and a full screen preview of it is available (after two or three seconds).

Plus there is a zoom view with a 200% additional zoom feature, so I can check the exact placement of the focal plane, or examine details of the live view image.

It works well for me shooting stationary targets with a tripod and laptop. It's not a tremendously portable setup, although it's more of a transport / set up / shoot / breakdown thing than packing a major load around all day. I wouldn't take the laptop out hiking unless I had a specific photographic target in mind.

And when I'm done the image is already on my laptop's hard drive, so I could post process it there but I prefer to copy it to my desktop and do it there.

 

[xtm]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15650737#post15650737 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by aquariumclown
Hey Ken, how do you shoot remotely? What's needed to make that work?

Maybe via Eye-Fi?


To the OP:

I suggest you ask your bank if they can give you a lockbox. I pay BofA $30 /yr for a small safe deposit box and I use that to store my backup files and other documents. It's $30 well spent.

If you intend to leave backups in your relatives' house, office, etc, make sure they are encrypted and password protected.