How do you store your images??

I'm starting a blog dealing with Information Technology and how it could be useful for photographers (link in my sig), and the first topic I want to address is storage. Since this is one of the biggest challenges facing digital photographers, I am wondering how you all store your images.

Do you use internal or external hard drives? Do you use a RAID 0,1, or 5 setup?

Do you burn to CDs or DVDs? Do you use some combination of these?

Do you use a file server or Network Attached Storage?

Like many who are still making the transition, I still have several thousand colour slides in trays, hundreds of CDs and DVDs, and external drives of on-going work such as news and scenic photography for a private park etc. My internal drives contain a variety of graphic and video editing programs as well as the most current work downloaded from my cameras.

Ronnoco

1) on the shoot, backup cards to pocket 80G XS Drive II
2) on return copy RAW files to internal HD
3) backup RAW files to CD, DVD+R or DVD+R DL
4) convert RAW to JPEG
5) backup JPEG files to CD, DVD+R or DVD+R DL
6) copy all files to external 250G USB HD

Only remove files form internal 200G HD when space is needed.

Next step is to backup the external HD to another external HD, and put that drive on a shelf.


What I ve learned form working in IT...
Tape baclup is essential for large disk business critical systems.
RAID is good for insects :)

[1 in 2002] We had a dual controller RAID setup, so RAID and mirrored.
One controller went down so we lost the mirror.
Then two drives went down and we lost the data.
[2 in 2006] We had two drives fail
We lost the array as a result.

Both times tape backup brought us back online with only 1 day's loss of data.
We use DLT (Ultrium 960 and LT03 media) which costs £2500 per drive and £50 per tape.
But for personal use, it's extremely expensive.

Personal experience?
[3] Memorex has no memory
The only time I've lost data is on Memorex CD.
The Kodak CDs I burned on the same drive, same day are still readable 5 years later.
Of course the data I wanted was on the Memorex CD.

[4] Verbatim isn't always so
I have 4 dead DVD+R DL discs, all failed while writing on the 2nd layer.
One more and I have a box full to return to my retailer for replacement under warranty.
Like that's going to happen !
Verbatim haven't responded to emails of course.
A friend of mine who's been in the business for years said "ah, Vermin" and recommended Taiyo Yuden media.

My storage systems right now, is a 400G external HD & DVD's. I keep everything on my internal HD until it's transfered to my Ex HD and I burn 2 copies to DVD's. It's not the best system, but having 3 copies of my files makes me feel safer.

Thanks guys. I'm hoping that I can get more responses in this thread.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SmartWombat

1) on the shoot, backup cards to pocket 80G XS Drive II
2) on return copy RAW files to internal HD
3) backup RAW files to CD, DVD+R or DVD+R DL
4) convert RAW to JPEG
5) backup JPEG files to CD, DVD+R or DVD+R DL
6) copy all files to external 250G USB HD

Only remove files form internal 200G HD when space is needed.

Next step is to backup the external HD to another external HD, and put that drive on a shelf.


What I ve learned form working in IT...
Tape baclup is essential for large disk business critical systems.
RAID is good for insects :)

[1 in 2002] We had a dual controller RAID setup, so RAID and mirrored.
One controller went down so we lost the mirror.
Then two drives went down and we lost the data.
[2 in 2006] We had two drives fail
We lost the array as a result.

Both times tape backup brought us back online with only 1 day's loss of data.
We use DLT (Ultrium 960 and LT03 media) which costs £2500 per drive and £50 per tape.
But for personal use, it's extremely expensive.

Personal experience?
[3] Memorex has no memory
The only time I've lost data is on Memorex CD.
The Kodak CDs I burned on the same drive, same day are still readable 5 years later.
Of course the data I wanted was on the Memorex CD.

[4] Verbatim isn't always so
I have 4 dead DVD+R DL discs, all failed while writing on the 2nd layer.
One more and I have a box full to return to my retailer for replacement under warranty.
Like that's going to happen !
Verbatim haven't responded to emails of course.
A friend of mine who's been in the business for years said "ah, Vermin" and recommended Taiyo Yuden media.

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Paul, I never would have been able to tell that you were in IT. ;)

Thats a very detailed response, and probably the best I've gotten yet. Thanks for the detailed answer.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ronnoco

Like many who are still making the transition, I still have several thousand colour slides in trays, hundreds of CDs and DVDs, and external drives of on-going work such as news and scenic photography for a private park etc. My internal drives contain a variety of graphic and video editing programs as well as the most current work downloaded from my cameras.

Ronnoco

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And of coarse most are brilliantly controlled and are of as high a quality as you've posted or shared with us thus far. I have to say those were brilliant!

Keep up the great work Ronnoco!!

Two hard drives, one internal one external. I also don't keep everything I shoot. John Shaw once said, I am paraphrasing here, "Unlike wine, bad photographs do not improve with age."

FWIW (not counting my older film negs and slides) my current work is on my internal C drive (faster processing speeds in photoshop) and backed up on both another mirror internal hd and an external hd.

All original raw files (and Adobe DNG conversion raws) as well as completed project psd and jpeg files are archived on an external hd and also burned on disc.

A pain, but you devise and organize the workflow, then the more you do it, the more you get used to it. And one day, either your computer dies (or just a hd), or you (or someone else, heh heh) accidently deletes something, and you kneel down and thank the photo gods that you did it... :cool:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mwfanelli

Two hard drives, one internal one external. I also don't keep everything I shoot. John Shaw once said, I am paraphrasing here, "Unlike wine, bad photographs do not improve with age."

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Ain't that the truth. I'll delete some photos before I even get them onto my computer because they're just THAT BAD!

However, one thing I've noticed shooting sports is that it is good to have a photo file of individuals. Even if it isn't the greatest shot, you never know when you'll need a photo of an individual.