What’s Your Preference?

JJayzon · #1 (**permalink**) 04-09-2010, 07:09 PM

Hey Everyone,

I need some suggestions, I have a 500gb external hard drive that is almost full. What does everyone else do to manage hard drive space?

Thanks.

BaylorBear78 · #2 (**permalink**) 04-09-2010, 07:14 PM

What I'm planning at the moment is to start burning older raw files off to DVD's for archiving, then deleting them from the hard drive.

jujitsu1 · #3 (**permalink**) 04-09-2010, 07:28 PM

I have a 1 tb hdd.....As they are now pretty cheap to buy when its full I'll just go and buy another one. My cusion also as a 1 tb but his was almost full but the damn thing crashed the other day and he last the lot. So be careful

jerome.oneil · #4 (**permalink**) 04-09-2010, 08:29 PM

I have a 500GB internal and a 1TB external. I back up all my data, including images, to an external site. I strongly suggest backing up to an external site or store your backup media off site (family or friend's home, safety deposit box) in the case of a catastrophe or theft.

We have the misconception that optical storage (DVD,CD) last forever. They can last a long time but are we willing to bet our lives works on them. In less than five years they degrade and become unstable. They can also be damaged very easily. If you start with a good system you won't spend time catching up and no offense, have a need for a DVD Burn day.

You can do backups in set, for instance I have biweekly sets keeping them for 3 months and I keep with the rotation. If I delete a file and need to restore it I have at least 3 months of backups to go to. This might seem a little obsessive, perhaps that's because I'm in the IT field and have experienced disasters. If you are serious about your data (especially a professional photographer) a good disaster recovery plan is a must. Even if you are a hobbyist you still care about your work.

Jerome

Aleix · #5 (**permalink**) 04-09-2010, 08:43 PM

I use a 250GB internal HDD and 1TB external HDD; but the internal is almost full, so I'm trying to change my strategy. Even thought I've not taken the step yet, I'm seriously considering off-site storage via a remote backup service (apart from regular backup to external HDD, of course). The only hassle is uploading all the existing stuff, unless you decide to upload only the files created from that moment on.

I've heard good things of Blackblaze, and not so good about Mozy and Carbonite. The rest I don't know. You can see a full list here, with detailed comparison of what each company offers you...

Good luck!

CaptainNH · #6 (**permalink**) 04-09-2010, 09:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JJayzon

What does everyone else do to manage hard drive space?

My answer to this problem used to be to head out and buy larger HDDs, to the extent that I now have three 2TB just for images (though two of them are mirrored).

The best advice I can offer is that you need to be ruthless in what you keep and what you delete. For example:

How many out of focus shots are still on your drive?
Do you really need 30 slightly different shots of the time you dog fell asleep with its legs in the air?
How many test shots for background exposure / white balance / etc, do you still have?

If you're anything like me, the answer is probably lots. In fact, when I spent a whole day (!) culling images from just my "recreational" image drive, I freed up 200GB!!!

Now I do the cull after every import and the rate that I'm chewing through HDDs has diminished dramatically.

About every 6 months, I do a "burn to DVD" day and remove anything more than 12 months old from the HDDs.

Aleix · #7 (**permalink**) 04-09-2010, 09:30 PM

CaptainNH is definitely right with freeing up space!

Ah, and if you use Lightroom, when you choose to edit a photo with PS it creates a TIFF copy of the original (or PSD according to your settings). In my case, the average RAW file is around 13mb, but the TIFF copy of it could be around 150-200mb! When I noticed that I converted all those TIFF into JPEG, and even though I lose flexibility when further editing, I cleaned up massive amounts of space...

WooD · #8 (**permalink**) 04-10-2010, 01:38 AM

I use 2 desk tops which contain 2 drives each, and a lap top. Plus I have 4 external drives.

I still back up everything onto DVD's.

I guess my answer would be to just buy another drive.

jdepould · #9 (**permalink**) 04-10-2010, 04:40 PM

3 500GB and 2 1TB Firewire drives. Plus a handful of 250GB portable drives for field work. I have 376 GB left on the (mirrored) terabyte drives, I'm not sure how long that'll last me, but when they run out I'll just buy more HDs.