back up my digital photos to CD/DVD

Or to external drive, which suffices…

Finally after many months of uploading, categorising and sorting photos, I have collated all of my photos onto a 300gb hard disc as a backup option.

It’s amazing to comprehend that only 10 years ago, the capacity of 1gb would have blown our minds. For at that time we were so used to using a 1.25mb floppy discs to backup any form of pictoral or processing data. Yet as our capacity grows so too does our use of it. A single digital photo taken from my SLR camera would far exceed the capacity (for one photo) on a floppy disc, even if it were half the size.

I now have all my photos on one easily accessible drive, the challenge now is to develop a routine of continually backing up and maintaining my photos.

My 300gb storage device arrived last week and I took the opportunity last night to start backing up my extensive catalogue of photos. I have now transferred all the photos from my main computer at home onto the external drive and now have only to transfer files from my secondary external storage device and my laptop hard drive.

This process should be completed by the end of the week.

I do this at least once a month, then store copies at my parent’s and mother in law’s house in case something should ever happen to the computer or my house should burn down. Insurance can replace a lot of things, but it can’t replace your memories…

I backed up my music and photos on DVD but I bought an extra 300 gig drive and an external USB drive case and a copy of Norton Ghost and I now back up all my data automatically each night. It’s comforting to do this. I’d hate to think about losing my music and pictures.

I have burnt over 25 discs now with photos cataloguing my life and adventures over the last three years; however the limitation with DVD’s is the inconvenient process of accessing the photos. The reality of all things in life is – if they’re accessible we use them – if not, they’re archived and never used again. We lived in a society of convenience and our lifestyles pertain to everything within arms’ reach.

Though for some photos it’s possible that I will not need to use them on a day by day, week by week or even year by year basis – for others this is not the case and the inconvenience of retrieving a DVD every time I needed to access them would present a problem in the long run. This reality has inspired me to investigate another alternative.

I ordered today a 300gb hard drive which hopefully will act as a reliable photo storage device for at least the next 2 years if not 3 :) Some photos which are kept purely for archival reasons will be burnt onto a DVD and locked away in my safe but the others which I use on a consistent basis will be saved onto this external storage device and be accessible at any time of the day.

The device should arrive sometime next week, the next challenge will then be to amalgamate my many files and folders onto the one drive.

i’ve been meaning to do this for a while…maybe i will do it on mothers day while my mom is at work.

Last night I bought some DVD’s, cd labels and propped myself up with cushions and a laptop on my chocolate brown leather sofa to start burning photos onto discs. In between the frequent jogs upstairs to print more labels, and raiding the cupboards for food, a movie was playing of which I probably saw a mere 40 percent of as I was hunched over my laptop screen deleting, moving and categorizing photos to burn.

Until the point of stopping at 1:00 this morning, I had burned about 17 DVD’s and started categorizing the rest of my photos for easy maneuvering. It’s a start…

One would think that with the advancements of technology and our progress from 1mb being the ultimate storage capacity to 80gig being the norm – we would have ample space. However… just as quickly as new resources have become available, we have become higher consumers of such.

My average photo with a RAW and High Quality JPEG File takes between 6 and 8mb of space. Multiply this amount by the thousands of photos that I take and it equals – a lot of storage space required….

Though I will keep some photos as duplicates on my primary hard drive, I hope to burn all others in chronological and type order onto dvd’s for secure keeping and easy access.

If I lost all those precious memories, I’d be crushed! I’m putting this great “thing” on my list too! It is a must do! Thanks for posting it! Brilliant! btw, LOVE YOUR SHIRT! Wish I knew where to get one!