Copying Images/External Hard Drive

[parrotmomma]

(I'm not sure if this is the right category to ask this, but I didn't know where else to put it)

As I sit here watching 20,000+ images slowly transfer, I began to wonder...

Does copying images from one external hard drive to another degrade them in any way? I'm actually moving them from a small hard drive to a larger one. They started out on my computer. They're mostly RAW files.

[49884]

The short answer... No.

[Rson]

The long answer.....No

[parrotmomma]

HAHA! OK, Thanks!!!

[DougC]

Opening a jpg many, many, many times will degrade the quality but as previously stated, no problem with RAW images.

[TXAvi8tor]

Originally Posted by DougC

Opening a jpg many, many, many times will degrade the quality but as previously stated, no problem with RAW images.

SAVING a jpg many times will degrade the quality, because saving re-compresses. Opening a file for viewing, or even for editing, and exiting the file without saving leaves it unchanged.

[z-monster]

Oh and lets not forget data corruption!

Oh yes, corruption of files can happen during transfer.

[Rson]

Originally Posted by TXAvi8tor

SAVING a jpg many tiems will degrade the quality, because saving re-compresses. Opening a file for viewing, or even for editing, and exiting the file without saving leaves it unchanged.

+1 it is not the opening, it is the saving.

[Nocturnus]

Copy it.. Multiple places.. I lost a whole year of pictures due to a HD failure, and lost 4 DVD's of images just due to the fact that the disc's won't read anymore.

[r0xikat]

Originally Posted by z-monster

Oh and lets not forget data corruption!

Oh yes, corruption of files can happen during transfer.

I learned this the hard way.

isn't it better to copy them over in smaller batches versus copying entire catalogs of folders at a time?

[groovyone]

I try to do mine a month at a time onto two HDDs, copying from the main computer to each drive, not between drives. Dunno if that helps in any way, just what I do.