Need Advice ....

[jordankreationz]

Hi all...
I'm sure there's a better place to put this but I don't want to buy new equipment so it's not equipment talk, and I know how to process my photos so it's not that one. Anyway everyone always stops in to this forum so I thought maybe someone would be happy to share with me....
I need advice on the best way to back up photos so that I can remove them from my sadly full hard drive. The kicker is that I still want to be able to see them on whichever media I put them on and if I use zip files that won't be an option will it?
I got a new camera and program that came with it indexed my pictures and told me I have over 12,000 on my computer. Holy crap! They really add up don't they? Now with a new grandbaby I know that number is going to sky rocket so I want to move some of my older stuff off to cd's...(no dvd burner on this computer) but if I can't just put it in and look at them they'll be practically useless to me.
Any great tips and tricks? Please help me figure out the best thing for my gazillion adorable photos.

TIA
DJ

[kenw]

if you burn them to CD, you'll be able to look at them just fine once you load the CD. It will look just like another disk drive.

Or you can buy an external USB hard drive and move all the images to that drive. You can get to them just as easily as them being on your main (c:) drive.

[Arnor]

Hi DJ,

You can buy removable drive racks (Mobile Rack) at Altex for $15-$70. Comes with one bay and one drawer that you can put a drive in. Then buy a drive, install the bay into your computer and you can view your photos all you want:)

I use two 360GB drives for backups in bays like this and one is always in a bank deposit box so we have off site backups of our stuff (mostly non-photo related work). I also have an external 120GB drive that I use to back my photos on and then I can take that with me if I need to go somewhere where I need to download photos - my laptop is old and doesn't have much space on it.

This is the one I have and it's only $14.95 right now:
http://www.altex.com/product_info.php?products_id=5436

Then there is this one:
http://www.altex.com/product_info.php?products_id=918

and this one for high rpm drives:
http://www.altex.com/product_info.php?products_id=3785

The first one is perfectly good and I've had them for over a year now. Then buy a big drive for it. The bay itself is put into an expansion bay in the PC and then the drive is put into the sliding drawer that you can take out. I bought two racks so I could swap them out.

For backup/copy software I use SecondCopy 2000 and InSync.

http://www.secondcopy.com/

http://www.dillobits.com/insync.html

Hope this helps:)

Best regards,

[jordankreationz]

Originally Posted by kenw

if you burn them to CD, you'll be able to look at them just fine once you load the CD. It will look just like another disk drive.

Or you can buy an external USB hard drive and move all the images to that drive. You can get to them just as easily as them being on your main (c:) drive.

Would take alot of cd's to put 12,000+ pictures on. I might look into the external hard drive. I just wish I'd have done it sooner...like before I loaded this one to the max. My computer is running so slow right now I just want to take a hammer to it.

Thanks for the input. I appreciate it.

DJ

[jordankreationz]

Originally Posted by Arnor

Hi DJ,

You can buy removable drive racks (Mobile Rack) at Altex for $15-$70. Comes with one bay and one drawer that you can put a drive in. Then buy a drive, install the bay into your computer and you can view your photos all you want:)

I use two 360GB drives for backups in bays like this and one is always in a bank deposit box so we have off site backups of our stuff (mostly non-photo related work). I also have an external 120GB drive that I use to back my photos on and then I can take that with me if I need to go somewhere where I need to download photos - my laptop is old and doesn't have much space on it.

This is the one I have and it's only $14.95 right now:
http://www.altex.com/product_info.php?products_id=5436

Then there is this one:
http://www.altex.com/product_info.php?products_id=918

and this one for high rpm drives:
http://www.altex.com/product_info.php?products_id=3785

The first one is perfectly good and I've had them for over a year now. Then buy a big drive for it. The bay itself is put into an expansion bay in the PC and then the drive is put into the sliding drawer that you can take out. I bought two racks so I could swap them out.

For backup/copy software I use SecondCopy 2000 and InSync.

http://www.secondcopy.com/

http://www.dillobits.com/insync.html

Hope this helps:)

Best regards,

This looks good but I don't have an empty bay.

Thanks for the advice tho. I appreciate it.

DJ

[JamesB]

if you have a CD burner, you could replace it with a DVD burner. DVD's hold about 4 gig so you would have less disk to burn. I got my DVD burner for about $45, slapped it in my self and backed up all my photos.

i replaced the 160gig drive with a 250 gig drive. I have a spare 250 gig drive,plus the 160 drive still has the original data.

or you could us a USB external drive. you are seriously gonna have to think about your growing storage needs and how you are going to store them and access them.

there plenty of ways to do this with external hard drives. some of the external drive options will allow multiple external drives.

James

[JamesB]

forgot to mention this....

you should really have 2 hard drives in your system.

1 small drive (40 to 80 gig) for your Operating system and all your programs
and at least 1 drive for data, photos, back ups and what ever you want to put on there.

this makes surviving a hard drive failure only half as bad, plus it makes it easier to upgrade and reconfigure your system later on. and it helps keep your system running smooth.

James

[Arnor]

Hi,

Originally Posted by jordankreationz

This looks good but I don't have an empty bay.

You can get external drives. On USB2 or FW they work pretty darn well. I'd really not want to mess with CDs and DVDs any day. I've given up on both for anything but short lived transportation media. From what I've read on the web neither can be relied on as long term storage.

Best regards,

[jordankreationz]

Originally Posted by Arnor

Hi,



You can get external drives. On USB2 or FW they work pretty darn well. I'd really not want to mess with CDs and DVDs any day. I've given up on both for anything but short lived transportation media. From what I've read on the web neither can be relied on as long term storage.

Best regards,

My husband just ordered me a Seagate 250 gig external hard drive for my mother's day gift. It was on sale for 79.00. Sounded like a good deal. Better than what I've got going now anyway.
Thanks for all the input guys. I'll let you know how the Seagate works out.

DJ

[Arnor]

Hi DJ,

Where did he/you find that for $79? That sounds like a pretty good deal!:) Let us know how it works:)

Best regards,

[jordankreationz]

Originally Posted by Arnor

Hi DJ,

Where did he/you find that for $79? That sounds like a pretty good deal!:) Let us know how it works:)

Best regards,

I trust you mean my Seagate 250 gig external hd? Newegg.com. Yes I'll let you know how it works. I can't wait to get it!

[darktiger]

I say a external firewire 750GB HD......

[jordankreationz]

Got my Seagate today. I'm lovin it so far. No hassle setup. Love the plug and go stuff. I cleared out my 40 gigs of pics of my my hd and seems to be running smoother. It's a nice little thing, runs fast and the price was definitely right for me. I think Newegg is my new best friend....them and my hubby I guess since he bought it for me. :)

DJ