Backups Backups Backups!!!

[KeithD]

Use the free storage sites, you get 5GB on one of them, and store you pics around different suppliers.

Also get hard copies of your main photos, they only cost a few pence at Bonusprint, just in case we get hit with a nuke or solar flare

[joebloggs]

Also get hard copies of your main photos, they only cost a few pence at Bonusprint, just in case we get hit with a nuke or solar flare

yes i could make a nuclear shelter out of all the pics my misses has taken if i printed them all out , also i've got 100s of computer mag from late 70s - early 80's i could use

i dont trust dat tape or any kinda tapes, i think i'll buy a 200gb hdd and keep a copy on dvds.

and of course print them out at work for nowt

oh couldn't use online, i dont want peeps looking at my pics

[JimOttley]

Dat, was it philips digital casste, mini disk, analogue cassette, 8 track, wax cylinder, sinclair microdrive, comdore ealy device disk drives. very laser disks, betamax, VHS, s vhs, zip drives, floppy disk all formats including ones launched only ten years ago like the 120mb drive . Could back up to a cloud I can think of ones which offer 100gb's per person. but companies will come and go over 75 years. Most of these formats the average household would have problems laying their hands on im guessing. Even old HDD formats as we move forward will be complicated for the person in the street to read possibly as OS's develop and change even if they use ibm pc compatiables or apples pass and present.

Best method for many things seems to be a hard copy if photos, diagrams or written word. Books or photos albums might be the best bet.

Still have a ZIP drive and a 5 1/4" floppy several different tape formats I doubt I will ever plug one in again at least not before I'm 65

Cloud backup tried Humyo 100GB and hated it, the non web sync software was desperately poor, I have Diino 100GB just now and its Java based uploader is pretty good.

Problem with cloud backup just now is bandwidth, it took me a couple of weeks to even use 30GB.

Diino have a free unlimited backup policy but I've never had a single backup complete without error I'm only trying to backup about 8 GB but that is a two or three day operation. Even if you have fairly good upstream bandwidth it's just not enough to be usable.

As a photographer I still have all my negatives and slides going back 35 years indeed I have my dads negatives and slides gong back a further 30 years That is effectively hard copy and is why I was making the argument for Compact Flash as hard copy, it's just much more robust than any other form of storage I can think of.

Even B&W or colour negatives are only good for 25 years if processed well and a lot are not processed all that well, but at least they only degrade over time you can still print something from them 50 years later.

In modern digital photography RAW formats are digital negatives and I would really hate to lose mine. Post Processing is the same as going into the darkroom in the old days you can always go back and try again to get the best output possible.

I'm a bit anal when it comes to the subject of backing up my pictures as I guess you can tell

I do share Joe's concerns about online file storage and certainly I have far too many photos to ever consider it as the only option, I use Flickr for the majority of my best shots but Flick will not accept RAW format and over time it compresses your older jpeg images without telling you, I've got comparisons between original uploads and what I am now able to download and I have proved to myself that they are compressing older stuff to save space :(

As you say companies can come and go, can you imagine if one of these storage companies went bust but gave sufficient notice for people to download all their stuff their servers would melt


Jim

[JimOttley]

Use the free storage sites, you get 5GB on one of them, and store you pics around different suppliers.

Also get hard copies of your main photos, they only cost a few pence at Bonusprint, just in case we get hit with a nuke or solar flare

I agree but then again the nuke will probably fry your photies anyway

Solar flare is a worry, we need to start building houses as Faraday cages as soon as we can :bangingfisthardontableicon: (I'm half serious Keith I'm not being sarcastic)


Jim

[joebloggs]

your negatives, you could scan them using a tma adaptor
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/f...cname=bps05614

part of my job is testing scanners, sold a couple of ex corp high end business scanners for nearly £1k each in the last few wks

thats brings me on nicely to scanning all your important docs, passports, certs and visas to pdf files, anything important now i make a scan of it to file and to print on a color laser. some of the copies are nearly as good as the orginals

[JimOttley]

your negatives, you could scan them using a tma adaptor
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/f...cname=bps05614

part of my job is testing scanners, sold a couple of ex corp high end business scanners for nearly £1k each in the last few wks

thats brings me on nicely to scanning all your important docs, passports, certs and visas to pdf files, anything important now i make a scan of it to file and to print on a color laser. some of the copies are nearly as good as the orginals

Agreed Joe, I could but I tried already and the time involved is enormous, I have thousands and they range from half plate through 620, 120, 135, 127, 126 formats.

There are always dynamic range issues when scanning photos or negs, you often lose a lot of the subtlety of the original.

I find these days that the best and fastest way to copy documents (and photos) is to use a digital reprographic setup i.e. a good digital camera on a stand with lights and a lens that performs reasonably at close range. But even then I don't have the time I would like to do it all, these are projects for old age and my brother in law has volunteered at least my sister volunteered him


Jim

[fred]

I just found this thread...A bit too late..!!



I never got round to buying the external hard drive Ive been promising myself for so long but forgot about and never backed up my stuff!!
Today I got the black screen of death (as my son described it) at start up.. we tried about ten times but always the black screen..
Ive not had to do this for years but had to get out the recovery disks..(now 4 DVD`s)
I chose the option to reinstall and save data option on my acer recovery management CD 1 disk..
Before,on my old PC this always worked and my stuff was never lost..
This time my old data has gone seriously missing..
What went wrong with the save data mode? Or is it all still hiding somewhere on my PC ? Any ideas where it may be? or am I grasping at straws..
Just a thought.. I only used 2 of the 4 DVD`s to get back my new desktop... I wonder what is on the other 2??

[sars_notd_virus]

I just found this thread...A bit too late..!!




Ive not had to do this for years but had to get out the recovery disks..(now 4 DVD`s)

What went wrong with the save data mode? Or is it all still hiding somewhere on my PC ? Any ideas where it may be? or am I grasping at straws..

I'm sure you can still recover some of your files .... we have some old hard drives and it was completely wiped out and formatted but my husband can still managed to recover some of the important files in it...in windows u can see that theres nothing in there but once you use the special program from Linux , some of your files will be recovered...amazing

[fred]

I'm sure you can still recover some of your files .... we have some old hard drives and it was completely wiped out and formatted but my husband can still managed to recover some of the important files in it...in windows u can see that theres nothing in there but once you use the special program from Linux , some of your files will be recovered...amazing

Thanks Sars..
As it happens my son found all the files that were backed up by Acer recovery management..
Alls well that ends well.

[sars_notd_virus]

Thanks Sars..
As it happens my son found all the files that were backed up by Acer recovery management..
Alls well that ends well.

Thats cool fred
what can we do without our techno and reliable children, they seems to know a lot these days

[les_taxi]

But as we have always said make a separate backup on usb flash drive and cd/dvds too of your precious pics and docs then no matter if your hard drive is un-recoverable you will be fine

[stevewool]

all my pictures get backed up onto a external harddrive

[sars_notd_virus]

external harddrive

very useful info steve,...i got 2terabyte external hard drive to store all my pix and important files too

[les_taxi]

all my pictures get backed up onto a external harddrive

Yes me too it's the best solution as you can store lots