Storage - Digital Files etc..

[Eifion Williams]

Storage, now there lies a problem.

Cameras used to be producing files of around 6 million pixels at the most, storage then wasnt much of a problem, but now the average SLR is producing 12 or more for the smaller chip and up to 25 million for the full size chip.

We are told that CD's will de-grade after a few years and they wont hold enough information anyway, so we have to turn to some form of External hard Drive.

I might be opening a can of worms here but, which is the best to go for !!
Is there anything that we as photographers should be looking for, i notice that hardly any have a power switch or a fan for cooling.

Any thoughts ??? :camera:

[Paul Smith]

Luckily as the pixel count has rocketed the cost of storage has plummeted. With my geek hat on I can see network attached storage (or NAS's) becoming the norm over the next few years. At this point they're still quite pricey though and a couple of 500GB hard drives is probably sufficient for most of us.

There's two main types, the portable usb powered (often needs two usb sockets) or the mains powered desktop versions. I prefer the portables as they save a plug socket. If you get a mains powered one it will generally turn itself off when the pc is shutdown, make sure any you're looking at do before buying.

A lot of external drives don't actually tell you what the disk inside is so it's hard to recommend. Personally in my experience anything from the larger manufacturers should be fine. They'll mostly use the smaller laptop size hard drives these days so no need to worry too much about cooling. I like western digital drives purely on the grounds that I've never had one fail and their desktop drives are reliable, dont use a lot of power and are nice and quiet.

Having said that I picked up a maxtor portable from pcworld of all places a few weeks back, must have been end of line as I only popped in to pick up a pen drive and the 500GB usb powered drive was cheaper than the 16Gb pen drive and not much bigger.

As with all computer technology at some point it will go belly up so don't rely on it as your sole storage solution. They're that cheap now that it's easy to get two and synch the contents every now and again.

[Marian J]

I have a 500GB Seagate eSATA external hard drive, with own power supply, and connected via a pci card. I find it fast and efficient so far. I only power it up if I am backing up files/accessing any.

I find that the most important part with regard to backing up is to actually 'do' it. :) Currently I plan on getting another backup HDD, but haven't motivated myself to sort that as yet :) and I am not the most organised about backing stuff onto DVD either ......

So here's hoping that the Seagate continues being reliable ;)

[Lee Iggulden]

I think I may organise a Wednesday Evening on this subject, would that be of interest to anyone.

When we had Will Cheung and John Arnold here with us yesterday this was actually discussed because of all the variying amount of info, gear available etc.

We were discussing what we used, Will used and what John used and what each of us would like on our wish list....

Is it something you would all find useful for me to organise a bit of an "event" on that could give you all manner of options, help and guidance.

Let me know and I will get on to it :)

Lee :)

[Dave Mills]

I've kept all my image files on the PC's hard drive plus a duplicate 350Gb free standing mains powered hard drive. I was advised that there was less chance of power glitches with these than using a USB powered one with their more delicate connections.
It's getting filled up pretty quickly even with mainly jpg files. As I will be using a lot more raw files after last nights enlightening evening (many thanks) I will have to have a clear out of all the rubbish and old video files I've accumulated over the years.
Thanks again for a very good evening. Both topics were very helpful.
Dave :thumbsup:

[Photo Imaging]

We are told that CD's will de-grade after a few years and they wont hold enough information anyway, so we have to turn to some form of External hard Drive.
:camera:

From what I have seen in Photo Industry publications for quite a while now it is being suggested that CDs are fine if stored correctly,
multiple copies of course, however, DVDs, Blue Ray etc. are not advised for long term storage.

CD, plus external hard drive, storage is also advised by The National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP)

that's my two pennorth

Joan