What is the best form of storage (other than hard drive)

[gmak]

I come humbly asking for help. I am "newish" to computers in general, and have only had PSE for a few months. However, I SO love it--that I have sat and just made one creation after another...having enormous fun figuring it all out (and upgraded right away to PSE4--since I figured if I had to figure it out I might as well go straight to that rather than learn one thing then have to do the other later). So as far as learning how to do things, I've felt good about that.

TILL last night when everything came to a screeching halt. My computer sent me a message that my hard drive was totally full (its a laptop that I also use for business purposes). I have been saving everything in Photoshop format, so I knew that it was filling the hard drive, but didn't realize it was doing it so fast/so much! I don't really know what to do. My husband and I considered putting things onto CD's--but got a message it would take about 20 to hold all the files (and we think--aren't sure--that would be about 30 min per disk to load)--and then, the problem of how to organize them.

So what he did for me (for now, at least) was to put all my PSE files onto an external hard drive last night. But before we actually go so far as to delete the files on my hard drive, we tried to open the ones from the external HD and they don't show any thumbnails--just give a generic-looking box w/ a picture of a camera w/ the file name under it (which in many cases is still just a number--I'm slowly working on naming things--but even so, I wouldn't actually know from a short name which photo it was). This would be a good solution if the thumbnails would open up so I could see the photos each time.

My son wants me to put it all onto a server/home network--but that is more than I really understand (though I'm open to it if its the best idea). However, I don't think I "get" how I would access my files from there--and I love the idea of being able to keep my PSE on my laptop so I can take it places to use and show things off.

What have other people done to handle this problem (beyond being smarter about how to store things in the first place :-) I know that I have been lax, by not spending more time trying to learn/figure out how to manage the files--but I foolishly got carried away with this addictive thing of making "creations" and...well, there should be a PSE 12 step program--but so far, I'm on my own about that I guess :--)

Any help would be appreciated and I apologize for the length of this message. Thank you, Kathi

[jo]

About a month ago my computer came to a screeching halt -- the hard drive was corrupted. I just wanted to cry because I thought I lost all the photographs I had taken this year. My last backup was nearly a year ago! But my son-in-law is a computer geek and he was able to retrieve all my data. So my new hard drive had to be reloaded with everything since the original configuration when I got the machine 2 years ago -- which was why I bought Elements 4. I saw it on the shelf at Best Buy and I figured I might just as well install the newest version.

But I digress...

I also bought an external hard drive for backup. But I'm so panicked at the thought of losing my photographs and all the projects, that the external hard drive isn't enough. Belt and suspenders, you know. So I also backed up everything to CDs or DVDs (depending on how big the folder was), and the first thing I do when I take the CF card out of my camera is copy it to a CD. Then it goes on my internal hard drive. And then it gets backed up once a day to the external hard drive. Whew!

I hate the Organizer in Elements, so I use BreezeBrowser instead. In BreezeBrowser I can rename the files with any convention I choose. I like to put the date in front of the camera's file name. I can view thumbnails of photoshop files (Windows doesn't display thumbnails for them). I can view the big pics and delete the truly fuzzy or otherwise awful ones. I can move/copy them into files the way I want to. And I can use Elements as the editor for a photo with a keystroke.

And about deleting photos...don't be too ready to delete something blah. Sometimes you can play with blur and colors and turn them into nice backgrounds for some project or other.

[Mary]

The cardinal rule that I always follow is:
If you care about a file then it has to be in more than one place. (Belt and suspenders). I save to my hard drive, backup to my external hard drive and on a quarterly schedule I burn to cd or dvd before deleteing from hard drive. :)

[fgrule]

When you say other than "hard drive" assume you mean your internal drive.In that case,an external drive makes sense to me.I got a 160GB Seagate HDD at CCity for $49 and put it in an enclosure(eBay or Newegg,etc).So I have an external HDD for $79.I keep it uplugged from both AC and the PC(so power surges won't hit it).I copy photo files to it once a month(unless it's really important-then do it immediately).

There's much controversy on the life of images burned to CD or DVD.I have burned to CD a lot.But now I have a dslr and only about 600MB fit on a CD.So it's a pain to burn a 2 GB CF card to CD.I may get a DVD burner for another layer of redundancy.The DVD is the cheapest way,but less convenient than an external HDD.

[gmak]

When you put things on your external hard drive, how do you see the images? That's what I'm trying to figure out. Since I first wrote this a while ago, my son suggested that maybe my computer needs a "renderer" that will convert the files to thumbnails. I know that I can get them off the external HD, but they aren't coming through with thumbnails so that I can see them. (Eg, when they are on my hard drive, they pop up in the organizer as thumbnails--but since I havne't yet deleted my inner hard drive files, I'm not sure that they will come up that way from the external hard drive, b/c out of photoshop, when I just open the files, they only have the camera icon or a little box--not the thumbnail unless I double click to open it.) That's what I'm trying to figure out how to get around. Do you have any problems getting to see the thumbnails from your external HD? Thanks.

[Montego]

I agree with fgrule that an external hard drive is probably the best for storage. I use CDs or DVDs,for all my photo storage, and I open them up in Elements Editor (I don't use Organizer either) by clicking File>Open and then in Open dialogue box use"look in" to find the drive for CD.Click on appropriate drive and when it opens, change to Thumbnail by clicking icon (the rectangle with the six colored dots) on the right. I should think this would be the same for any external drive.
Hope this helps and good luck.
Dave.

[jwhitten]

I agree with everyone. Back up on several formats and, if you can, store some in different geographical locations. I came home one day and found my house burned to the ground. Lost a lot of pictures that day. If your pictures matter to you, keep several backups.

Joe

[fgrule]

gmak,I'm not sure your question was answered.When I installed my external drive,I named it External Hard Disk Drive:P.After connecting to AC power and to PC via USB2 cable,I turn on the external drive with it's on/off switch.Click on "My Computer"-(I use Win XP).Then click on External Hard Disk Drive:P.The files are there just like in "My Pictures".

[Chris Bishop]

I keep my files on a second internal hard drive- (not my C: drive) as the main drive for the operating system, being used the most crashes the most. I copy the files to an external hard drive as a back up, but then burn to a DVD as well.
I have just started using ACDSee v8. This allows back ups to a DVD complete with thumbnails, and you can search through the thumbnails it keeps on the hard drive of the back up DVD's ---even when they are not in the computer. If you choose to work on one it will tell you which disc to insert to retrieve it. You can even search on various data and keywords.
So far, the backups appear more reliable than "Organiser".

[gmak]

Thanks to all of you for your very helpful responses. Yes, I think that the external hard drive is probably the way to go--with burning CD's as a back up to that. Chris: My husband and I had never heard of ACDSee v8. However, we "googled" it and saw what it is (as software)--and I'm interested in learning more exactly how you connect it to PSE. I find that when I save some things, I never see them again--what I get instead is a gray picture that has a broken line through it, or a question mark, or something that indicates that I must have flubbed it up somewhere. However, that is far from comforting when I have spent a lot of time working on something --some "creation" of my kids/grandkids, etc--only to have it disappear into the complexities of a computer system/program/--whatever it is--that I don't understand or know how to retrieve! How, exactly, do you get the photos/thumnails from the ACDSee to the organizer/editor in PSE? (I'm REALLY new at all of this--but somehow--something about it has so caught my interest that I'm ravenous to learn whatever I can/need to know). Thanks again for your help. Kathi

[ExpertNovice]

Tape can handle. It is cheap. It is safe. It will eventually become unusable. Individuals files can be restored to a harddrive for use.

CD is good but holds very little data, by today's standards. it is cheap. It is safe. A simple scratch (do you know what side to protect or even how to safely label it?) can render it useless to many. I would use CD's for distributing pictures to family rather than archiving.


DVD is the "same" as CD except it can hold much more and that number is increaing rapidly. (Capacity 2001: 4.7GB; 2003: 8.5GB; 2005: 45GB). DVD is more expensive than CD's.


A large harddrive is probably the best option.


So, what would I do? Put the pictures on a larger harddrive then periodically back that harddrive up to tape. Give the tape to a family member or friend that does not live with you or put it in a safe deposit box.

[kewTpie]

Tape can handle. It is cheap. It is safe. It will eventually become unusable. Individuals files can be restored to a harddrive for use.

What is tape? Not sure I've heard this term used in regards to a computer and /or backup before.
Please explain.
Thanks!

[Wendy]

I go along with other replies ... I have two LaCie external Hard Drives and use one of them as my photo drive and the other as a backup.

The price had dropped a lot and I took the view that I can just unplug them and move them to a new computer. I did just that when I bought the new Mac ... and it worked so well :)

Wendy

[kfpm]

I keep my files on a second internal hard drive

Me too. I've been working with computers for 20 years, and it's second nature to save numerous copies of everything. Given the price of disk drives nowadays, it make sense to invest in one just for backing up images or documents etc, and periodically writing them out to CDR.