Oops...filled a hard drive!

[NathanJK]

So I have a new problem, I just filled the harddrive on my main computer, about 176 gigs. I backup stuff to another computer that is really just storage space at this point and I periodically backup to DVD. I'd ideally like to pickup something like the buffalo technology 1tb terastation. That would get me 750 gb's as a raid 5 array and should tide me over for the next 1-3 years on storage depending on how business goes. I would back this up to DVD's, one copy on site and one copy off. I definitely cant afford to do this just yet, so I'll continue just backing up to redundant dvd's. I guess my REAL question to ya'll is...do you ever delete files? For some reason I have a mental block against it. I dont even delete obviously bad or oof images but I think I probably should. I could probably cut out half my data if I got rid of the obviously useless stff. The only problem is the time involved in going back through everything to pull that kinda thing out. I still kinda feel just weird about doing so too.

[JamesB]

Earlier this year I went through and deleted several gigs worth of photos.

Mostly the obviously bad and OOF images, images too far over or under exposed, and a lot of JUNK photos. you know those pesky test photos of your keyboard or wall clock.

I still have a lot of work to do to clean up all my photos to get them the way I want, before i upgrade my system

James

[Duffy Pratt]

I'm constantly deleting files. After every shoot, I delete somewhere between 3/4 to 90%. Then I try to cut another half. Ideally, at that point, I will be deleting stuff that it hurts to get rid of. Then, over time, I delete still more. The goal is to have pictures that are worth looking at. I see no reason to hold onto garbage, or even stuff that I think is marginally good.

If, over the next 30 years, I collected 300 pictures that I thought were really great, I would be very pleased.

Duffy

[rfortson]

Originally Posted by Duffy Pratt

I'm constantly deleting files. After every shoot, I delete somewhere between 3/4 to 90%. Then I try to cut another half. Ideally, at that point, I will be deleting stuff that it hurts to get rid of. Then, over time, I delete still more. The goal is to have pictures that are worth looking at. I see no reason to hold onto garbage, or even stuff that I think is marginally good.

If, over the next 30 years, I collected 300 pictures that I thought were really great, I would be very pleased.

Duffy

You're a bigger person than me. ;)

I'm a pack rat. I save physical stuff, so of course I'm going to save virtual stuff. Besides, if I save enough virtual stuff, I get to buy some more physical stuff. :)

Your method sounds good. I've been going through my old images and collecting the ones that I think are good/saveable/speak to me into one area. After I do that, I could see doing some serious culling. Usually, I just wait for the next computer malfunction to take care of the problem for me.

[NathanJK]

Duffy is a bigger man than I, no doubt...I could never delete on that scale! I'm thinking about heavily culling my personal work and leaving anything I get paid for intact except for obviously OOF images or useless shots. I mean I dont need a picture of my hand checking lighting or a shot in the middle of a quick sequence where the flash didn't fire.