Archiving photo files?

[Bob W]

How do you archive and backup your digital photo files? This is something I really need to address soon, and wondering what you guys do.

For now the files are on the computer's main hard drive (temporarily) and backed up to an external hard drive. But I need a permanent and redundant system for long-term backup and storage. Here's what I have in mind:

Computer hard drive, for temporary transfers and files waiting to be processed.
External hard drive, for backup of all image files.
DVDs for secondary archival

Anyone do something similar? If so, how do store and protect the finished DVDs?

[bdmicarta]

DVD's might work well but if you have as many photos as I do it will take a lot of them, and I'm not sure that they last any longer than a normal hard drive would last. (Right now I have enough photos stored to fill about 16 DVD's, so maybe it wouldn't be all that bad.)

I use a number of external drives, and store them in various places including locations other than my house. I figure that the more copies the better. Stored on your computer and on one other hard drive is not nearly enough copies for my peace of mind.

[Bob W]

My concern, the main computer gets used a lot for many different things. I'm not comfortable keeping any photos stored on it other than files I'm currently working with.

I use a number of external drives, and store them in various places including locations other than my house.

That sounds reasonable.

[GWashington1732]

I use cards like film. Once they're full, they're done and I toss them in the fire safe and get another card. I have them archived on my external HD and on a couple of flash drives, but that's just so I can get at them whenever. Keeping in mind that I try to go out and take some pictures every day, it took me from September to last month to fill out a 2gb card and a 4gb card is about $15 and will hold twice as much so you don't really have a lot of waste. If you do try to archive your files, you're looking at hours and hours of tedious, redundant, redundancy. I'm not even done, but by the time I got finished with the memory card and some negative scans I was sick. When I labeled one picture "Canada Goose (57)" I was ready to cry and I couldn't even look at a goose for a week.

[SharpByCoop]

I only use hard drives for backup storage. All my important files are synced to a cloud server, and I have access to them if/when I need.

For me, my files are TOO important to risk losing them to a house fire. All the backups and DVD's won't be any good then.

But... It costs money. As time is progressing, online storage fees are getting less and less expensive.

Coop

[eisman]

I don't have the number or quality of photos that I assume Coop has, but at this point I only use external hard drives. I'm currently using solid state ones for less chance of a moving part failure. I use the 1Tb size for portability. I have two filled with music, one full of photos, and one with movies. I can back the up cheaply, and store them in different locations. Cost is minimal, and 5+ Tb of cloud gets expensive.

[Gollnick]

Do not trust NAND Flash-based media such a memory cards. The data are stored as a charge in a cell that is just a few microns in diameter, and they stuff multiple bits into one cell. The difference between one value and another is just a handf of electrons. This media is not intended for long-term storage.

The best for long-term storage is one-time-writable CD.

Re-writable CDs are terrible, by the way.

Use the one-time writable CDs. And if it's important, make two or three copies.

[Ebbtide]

My coworker who shoots A LOT more than I do backs up all of his work on 3 hard drives in two different locations.
He is very diligent about eliminating bad shots, excess brackets and other shots that would waste space.

He also keeps everything filed according to date shot.
No obscure names to forget or misspell in a search.
I think being organized is just as important as the technological side of back up.

I am not that organized... it is more a mad professor system that I know. Most of the time

[GWashington1732]

Do not trust NAND Flash-based media such a memory cards. The data are stored as a charge in a cell that is just a few microns in diameter, and they stuff multiple bits into one cell. The difference between one value and another is just a handf of electrons. This media is not intended for long-term storage.

The best for long-term storage is one-time-writable CD.

Re-writable CDs are terrible, by the way.

Use the one-time writable CDs. And if it's important, make two or three copies.

Are they actually labelled as one-time writable cds or is there some crazy letter jumble for them?
How many pictures do you typically get onto one CD?
I may have to grab some for backups.

[Morrow]

All my stuff gets written to 4 disk RAID 10 array. From there is goes to a single large disk and then 4 hour incremental backups to Mozy (offsite).

[22-rimfire]

I currently use an external hard drive in addition to my regular hard drive. Using regular CD's is a good choice and will last as well as anything else. I want to do off site internet storage soon, but have not moved in that direction yet. I seldom shoot in RAW so my files are pretty manageable.

[bladefixation2]

Do not trust NAND Flash-based media such a memory cards.....This media is not intended for long-term storage.

+1 on this statement. Flash is not archive storage.

Hard drives can and do fail. Also storing them for a long time without running them is a bad idea, they are rotating machines.

Archival quality CD-R or DVD-R media is a good start plus a backup to an Internet backup service.

I also try to be brutal about what I keep. It's easy to go crazy with digital cameras and end up with thousands of junk shots that should be deleted.

I also only shoot RAW when i see something special. Realistically I'm wasting my time and storage shooting RAW images of snapshot subjects.

[GWashington1732]

Are they actually labelled as one-time writable cds or is there some crazy letter jumble for them?
How many pictures do you typically get onto one CD?
I may have to grab some for backups.

What do you know? They put how much they hold right on the label, who'da thunk it?

I went with DVD-R, the ones I got hold 4.7gb.


Edit: I got about 475 Fine PJEG files onto one disk and that only took up half of the space.