[tootsiesmom]

I don't have a good "plan" on storage and back-up. I got a nice size external hard drive for Christmas that I haven't done a thing with except format. I have a few questions because I never want to lose a drive again.

First, I primarily use a laptop on my lap on the couch. This makes it very easy to watch Lucas and be on the computer if I have to be. However, this makes it hard with having an external hard drive always connected since I don't have a "desk" that I work on.

Second, I would like to store all of my pictures and important documents somewhere. My computer is not ideal because I WILL have too many pictures for the computer hard drive

Third, I want to back this data up or have a copy somewhere.

Here are my questions, and there probably is no right or wrong answer....I just don't know the best, most effective and efficient answer!

1) Should I keep copies on my computer and the hard drive and synch with Groove? I also keep my pictures on Photobucket so many the pictures can stay only on hard drive

2) Should I only keep a copy on my external hard drive?

3) What is the best way to back up depending on what solution I go with?

What do you do with your doc and picture storage?

 

[zoezoe]

i backup my pictures to my external hard drive; upload them to a picture hosting site, copy them to a cd and also print out some.

i disconnect the external hard drive except for when i am doing a backup.

 

[Dexter Dogg]

I have an external hardrive that slots into the computer. I backup on the external harddrive but also keep a copy on the computer harddrive. I also back up all my i-tunes music too.

 

[Nick]

There's also the online route, with something like Mozy or Intronis.

 

[labwrangler]

I would back up anything really important on a CD or by printing a copy, as well as on the external drive. I recently got a new computer because the old one was dying. I thought I had covered all the bases by backing up everything on my external drive. But...the external drive started having problems. I was able to recover just about everything but only after several hours of panic and frustration. It taught me a lesson.

 

[joflake]

This is interesting to me. I was going to buy an external hardrive to back up everything, but if I have to back it up too, then it seems like there should be a better way. What about flashdrives? Is this sufficient?

 

[Allie]

Everything fails. Your best bet is to have everything important in at least 2 places to try and guard against it. There are automatic backup programs but for pictures and music files I would back them up regular to external and then to DVD every once in awhile. Usually when a HD fails it can be recovered, not true with a DVD or CD usually. If you only have a small amount of things to store, a flashdrive might be sufficient. But most FDs are usually 16-32GB. That's not a lot of space depending on how many music and video files you have.

 

[HersheyK's Dad]

Moving everything to an external drive, i.e. off your computer, does not provide you with a backup. If the external drive fails, its all gone.
So, step one, is to just copy to the external drive, maybe once a week.

Which OS are you running. If Win7 Ultimate, it will backup your data files to an external drive on a schedule you set up. First time it will back up the whole system, create a system restore image, and then incrementally backup up new or modified files on the schedule you set up. Win7 Home Editon will not do this, only the Ultimate version.

Personnally, I would them burn a set of CDs, or DVDs once a month of your really important to you, files. Financial records if you keep them on your computer, photos you never want to lose, etc. Each month burn another one of anythng modified or new the past month. At the end of the year, do everything again.

 

[Jimbo]

I need to come up with a better backup plan as well. Right now, I dump everything into a folder called Backup(date) and drag it to an external hard drive. If it's important, then I keep a copy of it on my PC. For my pictures, I upload most of my jpegs to a Smugmug online gallery and keep duplicates on external hard drives. I keep the original RAW files on an external drive. Last I checked, I have somewhere around 5TB's of data and pictures... Forget about storing stuff on DVD's, I could never keep up with them....

 

[tootsiesmom]

I need to come up with a better backup plan as well. Right now, I dump everything into a folder called Backup(date) and drag it to an external hard drive. If it's important, then I keep a copy of it on my PC. For my pictures, I upload most of my jpegs to a Smugmug online gallery and keep duplicates on external hard drives. I keep the original RAW files on an external drive. Last I checked, I have somewhere around 5TB's of data and pictures... Forget about storing stuff on DVD's, I could never keep up with them....

I was just going to say....uploading to photobucket is not the best plan because I DID lose my pictures on my hard drive and photobucket quality is not the same as the quality I saved on my computer.

 

[Jimbo]

Actually, I think storing your photos online is a pretty good idea... But it depends on who you go. I've had a Smugmug Pro account for 3 years and and I'm pretty happy with them. They allow uploads of up to 24mb's per high resolution image as well as a 10 min. HD video...