Digital picture storage

[Invoice]

What is the best way to store digital photos?
My wifey has a million pictures and is clogging up her hard drive.
So what is the most secure and safe way to store these images?
Thanks in advance.

 

[kgd]

Really the issue is to try to keep from having all your photos stored as one copy. I have not found CDs or DVDs to be very reliable. Sometimes they last, sometimes they don't work the first time, sometimes they just degrade. Hard drives have a habit of suddenly going belly up without warning. Point is - if all your photos are in one spot electronically - you can lose them at any time.

You can buy a 500 gig hard drive for about $150 bucks now days. You can buy an extra hard drive for you computer for about the same price. I'd say go with both. Get an extra hard-drive installed and move the photos to the extra hard drive. Then buy the external and keep a running back-up e.g.weekly.

I'm a back up freak though. Been bit too many times. I use a computer at my home office and have a laptop. The external hard drive keeps a real time image of what ever computer I'm working on then I file transfer to the other when I return home. This way, I always have 3 running up-to-date copies of my stuff.

 

[Trent Rock]

I use USB flash drives

Like this===>
http://www.adorama.com/IDSDCZ68GB.html?sid=1221446497497289

 

[mete]

Flash drives are not designed for long term storage ! The first thing I would suggest is that your wife go through and delete all photos that are really not worth saving - they can't all be good.

 

[These_Nutz]

Flash drives are to small etc.
A external hard drive would be better.

 

[heysox]

I moved mine to an external hard drive and I put them on DVD's as well. Hopefully, one of the two will be reliable in need.

 

[Millhouse]

If you really want to play it safe, you need multiple backups. I would suggest an external hard drive as the first backup layer. This is quick and allows rapid restore of data if required. Many external drives also come with backup software to automate the process should you wish.

I would definitely recommend doing additional backups of all valuable data onto good DVD/CD's to supplement the hard drive. I keep 2 additonal copies of valuable data, photo's etc., one is stored at work just in case there is a disaster at home.

 

[porkchop]

How about using one of the many on-line photo sites?

Using one of these in conjunction with a local backup would allow access to your photos from any computer.

There are also other off site backup services out there, maybe one of those would work as well.

 

[spyder10]

Put it all on an external hard-drive and then up-load everything to online server/photo hosting site. This way if something happens then you shouldn't lose everything.

 

[kenk]

This is what I do (except that my originals are on my main hard drive):

-Use Adobe Photoshop Elements for downloading, organizing, and downloading pics. An amazingly easy-to-use and powerful package for the price.
-If you don't have room on the hard drive, buy a portable hard drive and download to that.
-Do regular backups (using Elements) to a second portable hard drive.
-Upload your favorite pics to a photo gallery on Smugmug.com as both another backup AND more importantly as a way to share you favorite pics with your friends and family.

Note: Smugmug.com is not a free photo-hosting site, but it is very easy to use, has no junk advertising or other stuff, and - unlike most "free" photo sites that have shut down - will be around for a long time.