How do you back up your pictures?

[Betty Bolerjack]

This is a little late, seeing as how the external hard drive I had my pictures stored on appears to have died.:smilies0119: But, for future purposes, I was wondering (and providing a warning!) how you all back up your pictures?

I do recognize the importance of backups and do have some of them backed up on CD. Being a procrastinator a bit short on funds, I have not pressed really hard to get a back up source. I haven't even backed up to CD in quite a while. (Dumb, I know!) We were using Carbonite, but they don't back up externals unless you pay the price for business backup and that can get pricey when you have a bunch of RAW files. We had decided we needed to do something else, but hadn't done it yet. Obviously, Carbonite wouldn't have saved me in this situation.

So, here I sit, just days away from making a purchase of another larger external drive for backup purposes, unable to gain access to my 250GB hard drive which was packed full. In fact, I was trying to change the default location (it didn't occur to me to unplug the thing... duh!) to download my Christmas pics. I finally did unplug it when I discovered it wasn't being recognized by my computer. That's when I realized the default location changed automatically to my C drive when it couldn't find the external! Oh, the external had started making somewhat sporadic clicking noises a day or two before Christmas and died the day after Christmas.

I haven't given up on recovering my photos, but I realize it is probably going to cost a pretty penny to do it. I'm in no big hurry to get it done. I don't really think I want to attempt it myself, although I am considering the "freezer trick" to see if it will work long enough to get the stuff off of there. What I am doing now, however, is uploading more of my pictures (the few I had on my C drive and the ones recently taken that were still on my cards) to online services. I use Shutterfly for prints and books, but hadn't uploaded everything in spite of the unlimited storage because there is no way to recover the full-size image. Well, that was kinda dumb! At least, I would have something and could print from the full-size file.

I also have accounts with photobucket, picasa, viewbug, and flickr, none of which I do much with. I actually haven't used flickr in quite some time, but in going over the different possibilities, I decided it is really a good deal. I'm limited on the free account to uploading 300mb/mo, but storage is unlimited. I would have to pay to access the files, but it's only about $25/year. That's CHEAP! That would also give me unlimited file uploads.

Obviously, those are only solutions for jpgs. RAW files are another story. So, instead of an external drive, we have decided to put another internal drive in my computer and back up the other computers in the house to it. We will reinstate Carbonite on my computer and put a UPS on it as I think all the power surges we have had lately contributed to the demise of my drive. Over time, we will add two more UPS units for Mark's and Mom's computers. Oh, yeah... and I may start burning CDs/DVDs again! :smilies1722:

So, what do you do? Is my plan overkill? Is there a better way to do it? We'll be making the purchase on Friday. I would love to hear your thoughts.

[Gene Tatsch]

We have two Seagate 500GB USB drives similar to http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/700494/Seagate-Expansion-Portable-USB-20-Hard/

I use Acronis TruImage Home v11.0 software to backup each hard drive complete image to the Seagate that's at home.
Then I swap it with the one that was stored in the safe deposit box.
More or less weekly - or whenever something special needs saved.

fyi, Acronis gets mixed reviews - I haven't tried a total rebuild. But it does let me open archived files.

[Jonathan Long]

Betty,

I use external hard drives for temporary backup and I burn important images to DVD as soon as editing is done. I keep duplicate DVD's offsite in case of fire.... As of right now I've got about 6 TB of images on DVD that are archived files from this year alone that are in the safe deposit box.

Once my images are edited I don't keep the RAW files. This helps me keep the space requirements down to a more manageable level.

Jon

[Dana Grant]

I have THREE external hard drives. I just bought a new one so that I could store all of my pictures on it and give it to my son to store in his apartment. That way there will be 3 copies of my pictures. When he comes to visit, I'll update his hard drive. Hopefully between 3 hard drives, my pictures will be pretty safe.

Dana

[Betty Bolerjack]

Thanks for the replies. Gene, I see what you mean about mixed reviews on Acronis. I checked it out on Amazon and the reviews seem about evenly split. It might be something to consider for the other two computers, though, since they will need to be backed up to mine.

Jonathan, I had finally figured out that keeping all those RAW images just wasn't worth the disk space and was starting to delete them. Too little, too late, I guess. If I had burned some DVDs of the important pictures (I had a lot of junk I needed to get rid of, too... why is it so hard to delete even bad photos? :confused:), this would be no big deal. I do have some burned to CD, but never got around to burning a CD of some family reunion pictures from this past summer and only got a few of them uploaded to FB because it was giving me fits at the time. My cruise pictures from two years ago never got burned to CD, either, but we do have the ones Mark took and I have a few uploaded to Shutterfly. I think I have some kind of copy of most of the rest of the important ones, so it's not a total catastrophe.

Dana, 3 hard drives should be a pretty good bet! Some of my pictures are on Mark's external and we were thinking, we would eventually get another external (besides the one we were planning to get this weekend) to store at his parents' house. My thoughts, at this point, though, are that Carbonite is so much easier. I don't have to think about it. Maybe that was my problem. I got spoiled when I had it, even though I wasn't getting my photos backed up! :smilies1722:

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

Multi-levels:

1. Picasa web albums (ongoing): I use Picasa3 for editing and tagging photos. I can then upload them to my Picasa web albums making them private, shared, or public. The ones online are sized down for the web, but at least they are saved and recoverable.

2. Picasa backup to external hard drive (Annual)

3. Picasa backup to DVD (Annual)

4. Picasa photos as html (Annual) - creates a html web album of selected photos - written to DVD (Once 4 and 5 are done I delete the photos from my hard drive)

5. Picasa/Dropbox (Automatic) - My Pictures and the Picasa Database are automatically backed up to Dropbox servers - in fact with incremental backups kept for a month. Setting up the database backup isn't for the faint of heart - I wrote about it here: http://nazareneblogs.org/miscellany/2010/12/27/picasa-and-dropbox-syncingbackup-solutions/ -- once done, it's downright slick!

6. Since I use both a desktop and laptop and they are linked to Dropbox (automatic) - I have an ongoing backup via the sync process between the two computers and the Dropbox server

[Betty Bolerjack]

Wow, Scott! I'm starting to think that my solution isn't so over the top as I thought it might be! I did read your blog post a day or two ago. How much Dropbox storage do you have? I set up Dropbox a few weeks ago and want to use it to share pictures among family members. I do have a few of my more recent pictures in it. I learned about it after getting our iPads. (Yeah... should have gotten a backup drive first! The lure of new technology... Too late now! Have to say I love my iPad, though, and some of my pictures are on it! :))

Still thinking Carbonite is going to be the best solution along with a new, larger internal hard drive. I'll put select pictures in Dropbox, but I think my brain would explode if I tried to figure out your setup to make it all automatic! Carbonite is automatic, too, and I don't have to think about that or try to figure out how to set it up. I've already done it once and I know it's pretty easy, albeit very slow to get everything backed up initially. It's also pretty slow for restoring, but at least, it's doable and my files are safe.

I do need to be more diligent about culling the bad, or not so great, photos. I'm trying to eliminate the clutter from my life and bad photos are just more clutter!

Thanks for sharing your solution! Maybe it will help someone else.

[Dana Grant]

Betty, I agree -- why is it so hard to delete the bad photos!!! I also have trouble deleting the originals after I have edited them!! I need to work on that, as well. We're also in the declutter mode at our house -- getting rid of unnecessary items....I guess I'll have to work on that in my computer world, as well!!!

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

Wow, Scott! I'm starting to think that my solution isn't so over the top as I thought it might be! I did read your blog post a day or two ago. How much Dropbox storage do you have? I set up Dropbox a few weeks ago and want to use it to share pictures among family members. I do have a few of my more recent pictures in it. I learned about it after getting our iPads. (Yeah... should have gotten a backup drive first! The lure of new technology... Too late now! Have to say I love my iPad, though, and some of my pictures are on it! :))

Still thinking Carbonite is going to be the best solution along with a new, larger internal hard drive. I'll put select pictures in Dropbox, but I think my brain would explode if I tried to figure out your setup to make it all automatic! Carbonite is automatic, too, and I don't have to think about that or try to figure out how to set it up. I've already done it once and I know it's pretty easy, albeit very slow to get everything backed up initially. It's also pretty slow for restoring, but at least, it's doable and my files are safe.

I do need to be more diligent about culling the bad, or not so great, photos. I'm trying to eliminate the clutter from my life and bad photos are just more clutter!

Thanks for sharing your solution! Maybe it will help someone else.

To be clear, Dropbox is absolutely simple to set up. It's getting the Picasa database to play along that's a challenge. I only use Dropbox for current year because, as I noted, I delete the photos off the computer once they're written off to DVD.

For sharing with family and specific friends, Picasa Web is great. However, I think they have to have a google account of their own to see the photos. Using Picasa web along with Picasa though is pretty easy too.

[Dave McClung]

This is a little late, seeing as how the external hard drive I had my pictures stored on appears to have died.:smilies0119: But, for future purposes, I was wondering (and providing a warning!) how you all back up your pictures?

I do recognize the importance of backups and do have some of them backed up on CD. Being a procrastinator a bit short on funds, I have not pressed really hard to get a back up source. I haven't even backed up to CD in quite a while. (Dumb, I know!) We were using Carbonite, but they don't back up externals unless you pay the price for business backup and that can get pricey when you have a bunch of RAW files. We had decided we needed to do something else, but hadn't done it yet. Obviously, Carbonite wouldn't have saved me in this situation.

So, here I sit, just days away from making a purchase of another larger external drive for backup purposes, unable to gain access to my 250GB hard drive which was packed full. In fact, I was trying to change the default location (it didn't occur to me to unplug the thing... duh!) to download my Christmas pics. I finally did unplug it when I discovered it wasn't being recognized by my computer. That's when I realized the default location changed automatically to my C drive when it couldn't find the external! Oh, the external had started making somewhat sporadic clicking noises a day or two before Christmas and died the day after Christmas.

I haven't given up on recovering my photos, but I realize it is probably going to cost a pretty penny to do it. I'm in no big hurry to get it done. I don't really think I want to attempt it myself, although I am considering the "freezer trick" to see if it will work long enough to get the stuff off of there. What I am doing now, however, is uploading more of my pictures (the few I had on my C drive and the ones recently taken that were still on my cards) to online services. I use Shutterfly for prints and books, but hadn't uploaded everything in spite of the unlimited storage because there is no way to recover the full-size image. Well, that was kinda dumb! At least, I would have something and could print from the full-size file.

I also have accounts with photobucket, picasa, viewbug, and flickr, none of which I do much with. I actually haven't used flickr in quite some time, but in going over the different possibilities, I decided it is really a good deal. I'm limited on the free account to uploading 300mb/mo, but storage is unlimited. I would have to pay to access the files, but it's only about $25/year. That's CHEAP! That would also give me unlimited file uploads.

Obviously, those are only solutions for jpgs. RAW files are another story. So, instead of an external drive, we have decided to put another internal drive in my computer and back up the other computers in the house to it. We will reinstate Carbonite on my computer and put a UPS on it as I think all the power surges we have had lately contributed to the demise of my drive. Over time, we will add two more UPS units for Mark's and Mom's computers. Oh, yeah... and I may start burning CDs/DVDs again! :smilies1722:

So, what do you do? Is my plan overkill? Is there a better way to do it? We'll be making the purchase on Friday. I would love to hear your thoughts.

I finally decided to try Carbonite. I started backing up my photos three months ago and it still isn't through. I consider it to be the "last resort" backup.

Once a year I copy all of my photo library to a hard drive and put it in a fire proof safe at my daughter's house.

I keep the current year's pictures on my desktop with a backup copy on my laptop.

[Betty Bolerjack]

Betty, I agree -- why is it so hard to delete the bad photos!!! I also have trouble deleting the originals after I have edited them!! I need to work on that, as well. We're also in the declutter mode at our house -- getting rid of unnecessary items....I guess I'll have to work on that in my computer world, as well!!!

My biggest problem with all those RAW files was that I also had the JPGs since my camera will record both at the same time. For many of them, there was really no reason to keep the RAW... I just never got around to deleting them. If there is a problem with lighting or something, though, I much prefer editing the RAW files than trying to get something decent from JPGs. But, deleting those bad JPGs, now that's another story! Email is another issue. I try to delete frequently, but it's never frequent enough. And, then there are all those files I never look at any more, not to mention all those pages I bookmarked that I thought I would go back to "someday"! Computer clutter just isn't quite as obvious (a little easier to organize!) until you max out the hard drive.

We decluttered Tamara's room just before Christmas, but I had to let Mark do most of it. Then, he had to fish a couple of things out of the trash that belonged with a toy we had promised to a friend! LOL I don't dare let him declutter MY stuff, though. Maybe I should offer to declutter his! LOL One thing about the hard drive crash... I figure that helped some with the computer decluttering. It just wasn't quite what I had in mind!


To be clear, Dropbox is absolutely simple to set up. It's getting the Picasa database to play along that's a challenge. I only use Dropbox for current year because, as I noted, I delete the photos off the computer once they're written off to DVD.

For sharing with family and specific friends, Picasa Web is great. However, I think they have to have a google account of their own to see the photos. Using Picasa web along with Picasa though is pretty easy too.

Maybe I should take another look at Picasa. It seems that most of these online places do require an account in order to view the pictures. Flickr varies according to your settings, I think. Too tired to look it up tonight. I do think if I keep my files there, I need to just go ahead and pay the $25 because I started to upload some last night and quickly went over the limit.


I finally decided to try Carbonite. I started backing up my photos three months ago and it still isn't through. I consider it to be the "last resort" backup.

Once a year I copy all of my photo library to a hard drive and put it in a fire proof safe at my daughter's house.

I keep the current year's pictures on my desktop with a backup copy on my laptop.


Three months to back up your pictures? I knew you took a LOT of photos, but that's amazing! You must have a huge hard drive... or multiple huge drives! I think it only took a day or two to back up all my files other than photos when I got Carbonite originally. I don't know how long it would take to back up my entire library. Not very long at the moment, I guess! LOL

[Dave McClung]

...
Three months to back up your pictures? I knew you took a LOT of photos, but that's amazing! You must have a huge hard drive... or multiple huge drives! I think it only took a day or two to back up all my files other than photos when I got Carbonite originally. I don't know how long it would take to back up my entire library. Not very long at the moment, I guess! LOL

My photo archives take up approximately one terabyte of disk space. I have 3 terabytes of disk space on my desktop.

[Nelson Bradford]

Q: why would one use a DVD rather than a CD to back up photos?

[Jonathan Long]

Nelson,

A CD holds 750MB of date while a DVD holds 4.7GB of data. You'd end up using many more CD's to backup a photo library. For some people it may not make a difference but I have 6 Terabytes of pictures from 2010. So I'd end up storing lots more CD's when compared to DVD's.

Jon

[Nelson Bradford]

I was NOT aware of that
thank YOU
-neb

[Betty Bolerjack]

You know, when you think about how much you can put on a DVD, it was really kind of stupid not to have my photos backed up! That's the cost of procrastination. I have found some folders of pictures that I didn't realize I had on my C: drive, for which I am very grateful and my mom just came in and told me about some pictures she has on a flash drive for her photo frame that might be some of the missing ones.

I do wish I had uploaded more to online services like Shutterfly and Flickr, but I am in the process of doing that now. I have also installed the new hard drive and resubscribed to Carbonite, so it is merrily backing up my computer. The other computers in the house will be backed up to mine and Carbonite will store all the backups. :smilies0262:

Now, if I can just recover the files on that dead drive, I will be a very happy camper indeed!

[Betty Bolerjack]

My photo archives take up approximately one terabyte of disk space. I have 3 terabytes of disk space on my desktop.

I found where Carbonite says it slows down considerably after the first 200GB of backup. I don't have near that much since the crash, but our internet connection is slow so it is taking longer than I anticipated.

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

Picasa Web Albums just became more attractive as a backup option if most of your photos are less than 800 pixels wide. Larger photos count toward their 1 gig limit, photos 800 pixels wide and less don't count at all.

http://lifehacker.com/#!5772281/picasa-web-albums-provides-free-storage-for-smaller-pics-and-videos

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

I just finished my annual photo backup project.

1. I use Picasa3 software, and I used it's backup option, burning it to DVD
2. I did a regular file copy to DVD of all my 2011 photos
3. Picasa3 also will let you create web pages from albums, I did that for all my 2011 photo albums, writing them to an external hard drive

Once complete, I removed all the photos from my computer and from Dropbox - freeing up a ton of space for the new year!

[Dave McClung]

This is a little late, seeing as how the external hard drive I had my pictures stored on appears to have died.:smilies0119: But, for future purposes, I was wondering (and providing a warning!) how you all back up your pictures?

I do recognize the importance of backups and do have some of them backed up on CD. Being a procrastinator a bit short on funds, I have not pressed really hard to get a back up source. I haven't even backed up to CD in quite a while. (Dumb, I know!) We were using Carbonite, but they don't back up externals unless you pay the price for business backup and that can get pricey when you have a bunch of RAW files. We had decided we needed to do something else, but hadn't done it yet. Obviously, Carbonite wouldn't have saved me in this situation.

So, here I sit, just days away from making a purchase of another larger external drive for backup purposes, unable to gain access to my 250GB hard drive which was packed full. In fact, I was trying to change the default location (it didn't occur to me to unplug the thing... duh!) to download my Christmas pics. I finally did unplug it when I discovered it wasn't being recognized by my computer. That's when I realized the default location changed automatically to my C drive when it couldn't find the external! Oh, the external had started making somewhat sporadic clicking noises a day or two before Christmas and died the day after Christmas.

I haven't given up on recovering my photos, but I realize it is probably going to cost a pretty penny to do it. I'm in no big hurry to get it done. I don't really think I want to attempt it myself, although I am considering the "freezer trick" to see if it will work long enough to get the stuff off of there. What I am doing now, however, is uploading more of my pictures (the few I had on my C drive and the ones recently taken that were still on my cards) to online services. I use Shutterfly for prints and books, but hadn't uploaded everything in spite of the unlimited storage because there is no way to recover the full-size image. Well, that was kinda dumb! At least, I would have something and could print from the full-size file.

I also have accounts with photobucket, picasa, viewbug, and flickr, none of which I do much with. I actually haven't used flickr in quite some time, but in going over the different possibilities, I decided it is really a good deal. I'm limited on the free account to uploading 300mb/mo, but storage is unlimited. I would have to pay to access the files, but it's only about $25/year. That's CHEAP! That would also give me unlimited file uploads.

Obviously, those are only solutions for jpgs. RAW files are another story. So, instead of an external drive, we have decided to put another internal drive in my computer and back up the other computers in the house to it. We will reinstate Carbonite on my computer and put a UPS on it as I think all the power surges we have had lately contributed to the demise of my drive. Over time, we will add two more UPS units for Mark's and Mom's computers. Oh, yeah... and I may start burning CDs/DVDs again! :smilies1722:

So, what do you do? Is my plan overkill? Is there a better way to do it? We'll be making the purchase on Friday. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Betty

There are services that will recover the data on your hard drive. It is fairly expensive, but may be worth it. I had one that failed a few years ago and sent the hard drive to one of those companies.

Carbonite won't work for me because I have so many pictures. I backup on Carbonite only the pictures I ahve taken since my last backup to an external hard drive. I keep the extrnal hard drive an my daughter's house in a fire proof safe.

[Rich Schmidt]

I didn't realize at first that I was looking at a thread started just over a year ago. :)

I don't have any system for backing up our photos. I really need to get on that...

[Hans Deventer]

I have my pictures stored on a NAS with two 1.5 terrabyte harddisks, mirrored though so I effectively have one left.
Each day, a backup program on the NAS copies the new files to a remote location over the internet. Thanks to my fibre internet connection, that works quite well.

My regular files are on my PC's harddisk. They are copied daily to the NAS, and from there on, same procedure.