You need two solutions--backup and archive. They're different. Backup is
for day to day tasks to keep current files on hand. Archives are for the
files you need to keep but may not look at until next year or later.
Consider using network drives for backup. Buy the most reliable brand
bare drives you can find--Seagate, Samsung, Toshiba, Hitachi and put
them into a network drive case. Avoid Western Digital--they outsource
manufacturing so the drives' chips may not be consistent, thus making
damaged drives more costly, or perhaps impossible to restore, even if
the drives are reliable. If backing up is mission critical, and it
usually is, rotate several drives for backup; replace them after 2
years. DVDs are best for archiving. You want a static medium for
archives, not a hard drive where changes and additions can affect
existing files. Use a good database to find your pix and docs; do you
have/use one?
Betty
>Photos are usually best archived to DVD. But if you've got 200gb of
>archival photos it would take a month to burn all that.
>
Yeah... I've looked into DVDs for backups. When I first started the
biz, I used CDs for backup - one in my desk, the other into my safe
deposit box but that's gotten somewhat full, plus it's a hassle having
to go to the bank every few weeks.
>Question 1: Is that entire 200G archival photos? I know you shoot huge
>raw files for a given project, but after you pick out a few keepers
>and save them as jpgs or something, then it's time to delete the bulk
>of the raw stuff.
Most of the photos are jpgs. Some are the original 'raw' format, but
that's on a job-by-job basis. Figure 95% are jpgs and those have been
sorted through so the non-keepers are not kept.
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