I need to keep my digital photos safe!! Please advise?

Question

Okay so here is the deal. I have 100's of digital photos currently uploaded on to my computer. The problem is I'm terrified of having my computer crash or something happening and loosing all of them. I want to have these pictures for a very very long time. I want to be able to share them with my children and grandchildren and so on and so forth just like my parents and grandparents did with me.. only they had hard copies. And of course I don't want to print all of these photos but I want them to be kept safe somewhere. Is online storage the best option? Like a website I can upload them to ? What do all of you do to ensure your photo's safety? I know flickr is an option but there is such a tight limit on how many you can upload. and I don't need all the extra editing options. For right now I just want them the way they are... but somewhere I know they will also be accessible. Of course I would prefer a free site (or other option.. whatever that may be) but I would be willing to pay a reasonable fee.. monthly or yearly or whatever if I knew it was reliable, good place to keep my pictures.

Sorry this is so long .. but I need help!! Please =) Thanks!!!!

Answer 1

I would keep more than one back up. You can back up all your photos to an external hard drive and then at least take the most important of those images and back them up to CD or DVD (DVDs hold much more). Keep one back up in a different location,maybe even a safety deposit box?



If you do not want to use CDs or DVDs at all then have an extra back up on a 2nd hard drive or if all your photos do not add up to a volume that is too large then some sort of memory based storage, like a USB Flash Drive or extra memory card that is just being used for the back up.



The best CDs and DVDs are archival ones (see link below).



Hope this helps.



Mark

Answer 2

my goodness, the glass is half empty to you, isn't it! There are so many positive things with digital photography, but you seem to be dwelling on only the negative today! Digital photography is HUGE, and many, many people have started taking more photos and yes, printing them out, than every before. The scrapbooking industry is also influential in the increase in demand for photos, and people are printing out their photos and storing them in wonderful scrapbooks creating a story of their lives. I know I used to take film photos, and was limited by developing costs, or only taking a few on the roll and taking forever to finish the roll, so they could sit there on the roll for years before they got developed! And the quality of photos I took back them with my Polaroid or cheap Instamatic--they are nothing compared to the quality I can get now with my digital. Those are the crappy photos!! I have been using a digital camera for probably 6 or 7 years, and have never erased an entire "camera" by mistake. That would be very difficult to do. And it's not that easy to delete single images, either. It takes two clicks, generally, so unless you are a total idiot or just not thinking clearly it's not something you do easily. I'm not sure why you are so down on digital, as it doesn't seem like you are very knowledgable about them from your comments!

Answer 3

All good suggestions... but I've taken it a step or two further. I, like you, have thousands of digital photos and I want to keep them all safe.



I have two external drives. I never keep photos on my "C" drive - never - they like to crash as you

mention. I don't trust internet backups either for obvious reasons. Yes I'm on Flicker but this not the sole backup for my photos.



As I said I use two externals. One is my mail drive the second I use for backup to the first. Once the files are successfully backed up I turn off the second external, only turning it on when I want to backup. Then when my photo file, say "My Photos 15" reaches about 650mb I burn it to CD.



Call me over cautious but I've lost a whole slew of photos to crashes and I don't want that to happen again.



Good Luck

Answer 4

Your best option is to buy an external hard drive and keep backups of your photo there. They are relatively cheap to buy, $100 should get you a nice 250GB model.



Just remember to backup your photos everytime after a photo trip.

Answer 5

I personally don't like my personal stuff in the internet. So i would go for a flash drive. 2gb should be good and 5gb more than enough. Then put it in a safe spot. If your worried about losing or breaking it then get more than one. Get them at Best Buy, Wal-mart, Radio Shack, or any electronics store.

Answer 6

that's what i do. um, kodakgallery.com *not sure about the limit*, can't come up with the others right now, but there's a lot i believe...good luck! or you can spread them out on different photo sites. or you can put them on an external hard drive