Digital Confusion

[ttusa]

Hello everyone, I'm just beginning with digital photography, so don't kill me when I ask this question. How do you guys back up your digital images? Right now I'm transferring the ones I like to a 4G flash drive. I'm shooting in RAW, large, and fine- I don't want to back up to the computer and take up unbelievable amounts of space. How else should I back up images of mine I actually like? CD? Some computer program-help I'm clueless...

Oh yeah, are the images on the CF supposed to disappear when I send the ones I like to the flash drive??

[MRCPix]

I shoot 2GB cards so I can copy them on to DVD's. I can put both RAW and the converted files onto one disk

[JohnT]

I'm running two redundant external hard drives for backup, and I back up to CD/DVD. Works fine for me so far.

[darktiger]

I have a external 300GB HD, and usually back up my RAW's to DVD and keep the jpgs on one of my internal HD.

[kenw]

Therese, I copy the files straight to the computer from the memory card 1st. Then I delete the obvious culls. Once I get past that, I then copy the entire folder to a thumbdrive AND another hard drive (in my case an external USB drive). So now there are 3 copies: Computer drive, thumbdrive, and USB drive.

Once I get enough to fill a CD or DVD, I copy them all to a CDR/DVDR, and then to ANOTHER CDR/DVDR which I keep at work and then clear the thumbdrive. I usually also clear the computer main drive where I first copied them, but not always until space becomes and issue.

So I have 3 exact copies on 2 CD/DVDs and an external USB drive.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Just bought an external 500MB drive, waiting on shipment to come in, and have been burning to CD. Actually looked at some CD's yesterday that I burned over a year ago and they were just fine.

Heck a 4 gig flash drive wouldn't last long around me.

Some people are picking up Terabyte drives now and running out of room.

Top end is buying a 5 or 6 drive raid system with terabyte drives so that you have a whole lot of storage that won't fail unless you get nailed by lightening and it kills all the drives.

I remember back when PIXAR was first going good and they did a press release talking about having something like 25 terabytes of capacity for their work stations and it sounded like SO MUCH and now you can pick up a couple raid units with around 5 terabytes for under $5,000!
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10876
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/family.htm?id=10007 they have factory refurbed units at reasonable prices.

[mjdmike]

Everyone seems to have a different philosophy, so find a method that works for you within your time and equipment constraints. I think it also depends on what you're shooting, and whether it's for business or pleasure. Most of my shots, I could reproduce to a certain extent by making another trip. But for family events, and major vacations, I'll backup in numerous place, such as a DVD and another hard drive. I can certainly see, for business purposes, where an extreme backup and recovery plan is needed.

The bottom line is that you probably want to burn to CD/DVD those once-in-a-lifetime shots. Your hard drive is going to crash -- it's just a matter of when...

And yes, the RAW files will eat up your hard drive space, so you should probably come up with some sort of backup/deletion practice. You'll have to sooner or later.

Depending on what software you're using to transfer to your PC, you can have the program automatically delete the images when they are transfered, or do it manually at your convienence. I do the latter.

Here's my workflow:

• Download to my PC using Canon's EOS Utility. Leave images on CF card.
• Screen new images for usable ones.
• Once assured all RAW images were downloaded to PC, delete from CF card.
• Post process using various software applications.
• Save 'good' RAW and finished JPEGS on seperate networked PC.
• Every few weeks, I go through and trash images I won't ever use. I find myself going back to the RAW files for a week or so, looking to make sure I didn't miss anything. After that, I usually have new ones to work with.
• Burn to DVD any RAW and finished JPEGS.

[snidow]

Originally Posted by JohnT

I'm running two redundant external hard drives for backup, and I back up to CD/DVD. Works fine for me so far.

Pretty much a ditto for me...

I use a free backup program that runs incremental daily and full weekly backups to the external drive and I have another one that I carry and sync up weekly.

Cobian Backup 6

[ttusa]

Thanks for all your input, thus far. I need all the help I can get!

[snidow]

Originally Posted by ttusa

Thanks for all your input, thus far. I need all the help I can get!

We all started pretty much at the same place once upon a time

[whodunnit]

For me I shoot 2 - 4GB card and 1-1GB card for just in case. No matter what I use I come home and dump the files on my PC ( my PC has 2-250GB HD's). Before really looking at them I back up the RAW's to a dvd label it and throw it in the CD case. Then make a copy of the RAW, rename and place the renamed ones a different location on my PC and process from there. Processing = sorting, deleting, cropping converting back to jpeg and so on... Once I'm done with the images I copy the original RAW's stored on my PC(remember I made a copy before editing even though I already backed up to a dvd) and place on my server and my 2TB USB drives. This way I have the original RAWS and the end result on my server and USB

That is just how I do it and the reason is becasue I'm still learning, so if I read or hear of a new way to process an image in PS I go back an try it from my RAW.

Good Luck. Oh and the reason I started making multiple back ups is, once I took some once in a lifetime shots of my son and somehow managed to delete the wrong folder containing both the raws and the processed.... I guess you can say once bitten twice shy.

IMO I suggest you find something that works for you and stick to it so you don't accidently do what I did.

[zeroendless]

Oh yeah, are the images on the CF supposed to disappear when I send the ones I like to the flash drive??

Depend on your setting and what application you used to transfer the file. Some ask user to delete source after transfer and other just ignore it. But that doesn't matter at all, after you copy the file to target location, you can manually delete the CF from pc or format it using your camera. It's better and faster to format your cf with camera and in fact a good practice to do that prior to shooting. Unless you have old image like to keep for next session.

As for backup, just copy to computer hdd or external hdd then make unless one backup to another. It's often too late to cry out help when your system crashed and took the data with you. Advance Recovery usually costs 10 times as much for the money and time you can get for an external drive now.

[icephoto]

All are awesome ideas. Just a couple months ago I did a program at my local photo club (Concho Valley Photo Club) regarding backing up images and things to consider. The Reader's Digest™ version was:

1) Back-up regularly
2) Back-up your back-up's semi regularly (every 2-3 years to account for media tech changes and possible media degrediation)
3) Store one set of back-ups somewhere else.

Personally I do an incremental back-up first Saturday of every month, going from the last image of the last full DVD that I made. When I fill a DVD I burn an additional copy of that DVD for off-site storage and start the next one. Every couple of years I take all of the discs and do a full back-up, with my move to a full DVD-R back-up this December from a combination of CD's and DVD's, making two sets so I could send one to my off-site storage place (Mom & Dad). I've also gone to taking the images that I tinker with and back them up separately so I've got incremental looks at what I've done.

Big picture: Do what you're comfortable with and do what you can remember. Hard drives will fail. Eventually, so will media. And it's possible that the media that we're using today may not be readable by tomorrow's technology.

[ttusa]

Thanks for all your advice-I appreciate you taking time to help the rookie

[Joe A.]

Originally Posted by ttusa

Thanks for all your input, thus far. I need all the help I can get!

You're going to love it!