Backup Raw or Jpegs?

Hello

I'm a neewbie to the forum and actually a neewbie to Digital SLR's. I have a K10D with kit lens and have had it a year and am learning about all it;s functionality and creative options it offers.

I've recently decided to shoot Raw and have Elements 7 for processing.

However my PC is just about full what with ipod songs as well as photos.

Question is do you back up your Raw files AND converted Jpegs, or do you just tend to save one of either Raw files or jpegs. I'm thinking of deleting the raw files once processed as they take up so much space. That said i don;t have a separate Hard DRive (yet!)

Advice welcome.

Richard

Hi and welcome.

I always save the raw files and any I have turned into Jpeg on a desktop drive, Desktop drives are cheap nowdays and this will free up your PC/Laptop system.

I tend to shoot RAW and keep RAW. If I want to use a photo (for print or posting online) then I'll develop it, do what's neccessary with the JPEG, then delete the JPEG. You can always make another JPEG from the RAW file but you can't make a RAW file from a JPEG...

With memory so cheap these days think about getting another (external?) hard drive for storing your photos on, then it won't matter if you don't have so much room on your main drive.

If I were you I would get an external hard drive and keep your photo's on there.

Personally I keep all my RAW images as they are most important to me. If I do anywork to them then I save it as a PSD and save that to. I don't convert them to a jpeg unless I need to show them for a job.

Other people may store their RAW's differntly to me, but to me my RAW's are like negatives, I store them well and back them up. Definitely go for the external drive to store your files or delete some songs....

Paul

Totally agree with hefty1!! Best to keep the file that is lossless. You can go back to it time after time without causing quality loss.

What i would do is invest in 100 blank dvdrw and back them up to that like i do. I have about 8 totally filled now. Each disk is 4.7gb so you will have lots of storage.

Thats 4700gb, or approx 4.7 terabytes for about £15 (100 blank disks)

Cheap as chips!

I wouldnt store onhard drives. I have seen too many hard drives break (own computer business for 3yrs) and if they do its sometimes hard to get the files back. Backup to disk and put them somewhere safe.

I actually backup to disk and make another copy of the disk as a master and store it.

all good points re Raw being the negative equivalent i guess and more amenable for future tweaking.

Looks like external hard drive is the way to go with DVD back up for offsite storage at my sis-in-law.

thanks all

That's exactly what I do, I didn't mention the off site storage as I have mentioned that in another thread on this forum.

I use my hard drives; main computer, 2 externals, and dvds of each shoot.

Sounds alot but when you do it for a living you can't afford anything going wrong. With the dvds, I keep a copy and hand one to my in-laws.

Ok I understand that hard drives can break but I wouldn't feel safe if I hadn't put them on the hard drives. Dvd's can get scratched or damaged to.
Like I said though, I do make copies on both discs and drives.

Paul

I have my RAWs on a portable hard disk, then backed up onto a second external hard disk, and then periodically backed up onto DVD... Belt and braces is always best.

As to saving RAW v. jpeg, as I use Lightroom the edits are saved as XML sidebar files and I just create jpgs for specific purposed (e.g. posting on here or my blurb book).

Cheers, Kris.

Keep your RAW files. It's like keeping your negatives. Keep your JPEGs too. Upgrade the drive in your PC and get a big external backup dive too.

DVD and CD discs can fail too eventually, and you can't get fit a huge number of RAW files on one anyway, so they're quite inconvenient. Hard drive backup is becoming the norm as files get increasingly voluminous.

It's doesn't matter if a hard drive fails if your data is backed up to another hard drive. They're cheap enough now to have at least one backup drive that is as large as the drive(s) in your PC.

I agree with iceblinker, unless you invest in discs like Delkin Devices Archival Gold (I've no connection with the company btw) beware because writable CDs and DVDs will fail with age.
I know from bitter experience

Never delete the RAW files - keep them either on a separate drive or a duplicate DVDs.

I keep mine on DVDs and just a set of JPGs on the PC but can link back if required. I will get a NAS drive soon too - but wiring the house network, 60 ports and 1km of cable has to be finished first!

I keep everything...
Drive full, buy new bigger drive.
The prices of harddrives are so low now.

I have a backup on a external drive and on my image tank (has 500gb's of storage) and I do a periodical backup on a seperate drive which I keep at my parent house just in case.

[edit]
oh, I allso keep a copy on my NAS
[/edit]

The other thing to look at is online backup, but make sure the companies are backing up to multiple locations. You can get 50GB for £30/year from PC World and prices are likely to come down further.

Do check about who owns copyright. Some of the services say they can use your images in any way they want.

I use a Netgear ReadyNAS 1Tb system for all my file storage. It has a USB slot on the front which is set to 'suck in' any image files that it finds on a card reader that plugs into it.

It takes the .PEF's from my memory card and stores them in a folder of my choosing.

I then use Lightroom to convert them to .DNG format and store them in another folder (that's two copies of everything).

The ReadyNAS has a further two USB sockets at the rear, to which I've attached two external drives. All of my images go onto one drive and the entire contents of the ReadyNAS goes on to another WD MyBook 1Tb drive. (that's now 5 copies of everything).

For 'belt and braces' I periodically backup everything to tapes which are stored in a fire safe.

At any one time I have 6 copies of all of my images, 5 copies on 3 separate disks and one on tape in a safe.

I don't plan on losing anything.

PS: I've worked in IT as long as I can remember and I've been through the pain, and sometimes financial loss, of losing data. It's not a pleasant experience.