I'll never do that - I don't have the patience or organization to do something like that on a regular basis. Just reading about what you do is giving me a headache ;-)) CDs probably wouldn't work for me. Original files are 40+ mb - often 135mb, and a few that are far larger. Add to that the WIP files, and then the final versions, by the time I'm done working on a few pics, I've got a DVDs worth of data.
Thanks for your suggestions ... I think I'm gonna go with a couple of external drives. All the great backup and storage schemes are worthless if I won't use 'em. Shel > [Original Message] > From: David Oswald > My archival system is as follows: > > At the end of the day, the photos get uploaded from SD to a notebook. I > may do a little editing and such, but always keep a copy of the original > image untouched. The images all go into a folder named for the date and > possibly the location of the shots. > > The files are then copied (not moved) across my LAN to a standalone > network hard drive. Once that's done, I'm ok with the thought of > erasing the SD card because now I have two copies. > > After I've got enough images on the network drive to fill a few CD's, > I'll burn two copies of each CD generated from the images on the network > drive. > > Only after I've got a couple of CD's will I consider erasing the images > off the network drive. Even then I may hang onto them on the network > drive for convenience. By this point I've probably erased them off the > notebook's hard drive. > > So the idea is I've always got at least two copies: SD/Notebook, > Notebook/Network drive, Network Drive/CD, and finally CD/CD. > > It's impossible to know the lifespan of the CD's. I do keep one > 'working' copy, and one 'archival' copy. My working copy goes into a CD > wallet that I'm frequently referring to. The archival copy goes into a > jewelcase and gets stored in a big box in a closet somewhere. If I ever > find one of the CD's in the wallet to fail, I'll just make another copy > using the archival copy as the master. > > In the end, I'll probably have the CD's longer than any CD player. At > some point down the road I'll have to copy all my CD's to something none > of us have heard of yet. ;) > > Dave
