Storing digital images safely

[SHRED]

I messed up.
I had almost all our pics and movies from the last 12 years on an external hard drive which has now crashed and I hope can be recovered. I find out tomorrow.

I need a backup plan which includes both home storage and maybe Cloud if I can find a reasonable service. We don't spend a lot of time with our pics but we want them secure.

I'm thinking definitely a new external drive but also burning them on to DVD and possibly flash drives?

Any advice is appreciated.
Big lesson learned.

[CurtEastPoint]

1. Suggestion: buy a terabyte (or 2 or 3 or 4) portable drive, do a backup,

remove the drive and store in fireproof safe.

[SHRED]

2. That's my problem

I had one.
It crashed.

I need another but I want redundancy hence the DVD and/or flash drive ideas.

[teamster633]

3. I backup all my raw files to a DVD in addition to copying them to a separate HDD...

I don't process any individual file until those two backup copies have been successfully created. If you manage to recover a full 12 years of images, burning all of them to DVD probably isn't practical, but, going forward, it doesn't take that long, and it gives you something solid, almost like having an original negative.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Look into M-disc technology. They are reportedly longer-lived than other CDs/DVDs.

The media are more expensive the greater the capacity, but still, you can keep multiple backup copies for modest cost. I'm hoping to save up for a Blue-Ray recorder with at least double-layer capacity. Max so far is quad-layer, with 100GB capacity. Personally, I'd prefer to spread my collection out over multiple disks, so that failure of a single disc is not such a potential disaster.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC Test results are disputed; note the extreme conditions of test -- 85-90 deg Celsius (185-194 deg F) !

If the technology is too unproven for you to trust, consider making multiple backups on as many different types of media as possible -- even different brands of the same medium. The key word is multiple.

[procon]

5. I use thumb drives and Amazon Prime with unlimited photo storage.

Prime Photo has a lot of handy search features that I like, and you can access your photos from any device. Anyway, that's what works for me.

[SHRED]

6. Thanks for all the suggestions

[MuseRider]

7. Cloud, external

and thumb drives. We use them all. Sadly they are not all in any kind of order. Something to do when I cannot farm anymore I guess. I do not trust clouds thus the redundancy although I know little about any of it. It does make me feel better. Losing that much on an external drive is horrible! I am so sorry for you. I sure hope they can be recovered. We are so overloaded these days, remember when we mostly remembered? Kept your mind sharp.

[ManiacJoe]

8. Right idea, just badly implemented.

You need at least two storage devices:
- main storage
- backup storage (never used, should do a monthly check to make sure it still works)

Both can be hard drives, one should be an external.
Cloud backups can be good, something like "carbonite.com". (I don't use any cloud services.)
DVDs can work. Need to use high quality "archiving" ones. Home-burned DVDs tend to have a limited life span.

My win10 box:
- main storage, internal spinning drive
- main storage, USB3 external spinning drive
- backup storage, USB3 external spinning drive x 2
- Most pictures uploaded to SmugMug.com, which could pretend to be a backup of the exported JPG files.
- Processed raw files and their JPG exports are also burned to DVD

[SHRED]

9. I'm working on it

I bought another external 4TB to replace the crashed one and I added another internal HD (4TB).

I find out next week if they can "clean room" retrieve my data. Fingers crossed.

[rdking647]

10. my solution....

as i shoot the photos go on my laptop which is backed up onto 2 different drives plus teh cloud using backblaze.

as my laptop gets full i transfer photos to a drobo which currently has 6 tb of photos on it.

the drobo gets backed up in 2 places.
i have an 8tb external drive that i keep in a safe at my house. whenever i add to the drobo i immediatly cak it up to that drive. (usually every couple of months or or sooner)

a few times a year the drobo is also backed up to an additional 8 tb drive that i keep in a bank safty deposit vault


Ideally your photos should be in 3 places,one of which is off site

[RussBLib]

11. modern problems

I'm dealing with the same issues, but I also have about 10 boxes full of old actual printed photos. One of these days I need to sift thru them and actually toss a few. And scan the ones I want to keep....etc, and then keep backing them up.

Maybe now that I'm retired.....