Storage & Back-up

I find all this discussion about hardware quite interesting. Professional archiving institutions are less worried about that than (a) the format of the files and (b) finding them (i.e. metadata). PEFs are camera specific, DNG is yet to become a recognised archive format although Adobe would like it to be, jpegs degrade, photoshop files are software specific... The current preferred long term file format is TIF.

With metadata, we are all familiar with the EXIF information, and many of us add in extras such as copyright info when we download the files (I have a standard metadata template in lightroom) but how many of us really add in useful information such as where the photograph was taken and what it is of? I have been taking digital photos since 2002 using various P&S but since getting the K10D a year and a half ago the number of files I have has gone up enormously. Most are still PEFs, few have much metadata... (and most should be deleted!)

Cheers, Kris.

To follow on from Chris, I tend to archive in both RAW and JPEG in a named, dated folder.

That way I can tell where and when the shots were taken.

For clarity I also record in a word doc in the same folder the specific time/dates relevant to the group.

This all gets saved on Internal/external HDDs and CD/DVDs.

Can't be too careful!

Stress. Decision paralysis. What do I do to make sure my beloved photos are safe from mishap and calamity?? Like everyone else, I hold multiple copies on internal and external drives with DVD backups too. Some are held in cyberspace but the point I'm going to make is - no matter how careful we are, who knows apart from yourself, where the pictures are??

Yes okay, they're on the hard drive but will those who want to retrieve them, if god forbid you're not around, know where to look? Have you given them the 'route map'?

All very well having everything on Flickr or some other online database but would your nearest and dearest know your logon details?

Just a thought

Copying the picture folder from my home PC to my office laptop, then copying both machines to external drives should provide enough security.
Especially since the external drives are always kept at two different locations.

The external drives are used for backup only, hence they have a very low runtime and should last for ever.

I save mine firstly to the internal drive on my pooter, then to an external drive, then to CD/DVD

Then, and I bet no-one else does this, maybe because I am slightly crazy, I make another copy of the CD/DVD and send or hand it to my mother and father inlaw. Sounds mad but there are reasons.

1. If there was a fire then both the hard drive and the external drive could be destroyed
2. As the images are mainly portraits and weddings of my clients, I don't ever want to lose them so I back them up 3 times.

Yes I could store online but that's where I get paranoid about servers going down and the whole lot getting lost

Does anyone else share the same insanity/paranoia as me

I would do if I took such important pictures - then an off site backup would be important. As well as the fire risk, external hard drives are popular with burglars - a popular item to easily sell down the pub.

My back up drives are kept in a safe. A small water and fireproof safe wont cost any more than the drive itself.

Having said that, my negative files aren't protected at all

I am more paranoid about the site record photos (dull pictures of mud) than my carefully crafted "nice" photos. The former I have been paid to produce (in a round about way), the latter only I would cry...

NIck blurp yargh!!!

I hadn't thought of keeping a set 'off site' so to speak, maybe that is paranoid (cue Black Sabbath!!!) but a damn good idea!