Need Huge Storage Space

[mrinmoyvk]

Hello Everyone,

Most people out here would be doing digital photography for many years now. Now a days, these high rise in mega pixels and RAW capability increases image size tremendously. Average size of an RAW file from 24MP sensor is easily around 15 MB. I am still in learning phase and find that only 10% of the clicked images are useful and keep only those straight away deleting remaining ones. Obviously until final editing touch has been given to the selected images, I have all the original images in PC as well as memory card.

My question is

"Do you keep backup of all the images clicked or just those selected ones which you like?"

[Donald]

I have 3 categories of RAW file:
a) Keepers
b) Maybe one day
c) Dump

I keep a) and b) and they are backed up. c) is deleted and never seen again.

[pnodrog]

I only dump what I consider are the absolute failures (about 5% anybody else would probably dump 95% of them...) Over the years I have occasionally spotted a neglected/overlooked image that ends up being a favourite. Storage is cheap compared to what film used to cost me each year.

I back them all up but I do have additional backup for finalised "portfolio" images probably less than 1% of all photographs taken.

[IzzieK]

Storage nowadays are fairly cheap. 'Fact I just bought another one yesterdee at Micro Center.

[JR1]

If I had disposed of what I considered poor images twenty + years ago I would not have working level crossings, steam trains etc today

[John 2]

My approach is similar to Donald's. I dump total failures and duplicates (the down side of shooting on continuous) and keep the rest roughly catalogued into where and when. I then more precisely portfolio anything that I have PP'd into something worth sharing or using in competitions. I back up everything on a weekly basis. Like LP, I have quite often found images in retrospect that were worth a revisit, particularly as my PS skilled have moved on.

[mrinmoyvk]

That means I need to plan for some huge external storage or some cheap cloud storage.
Google drive is way expensive.

[Donald]

That means I need to plan for some huge external storage or some cheap cloud storage.
Google drive is way expensive.

I think you have to make your own decision based on an analysis of what you want/need. It is easy to just follow what everyone else says about 'keep everything, or most things' and convince yourself of the need for lots of storage. But if, after your detailed assessment, you decide you do not need to keep so many files, then you may not need the storage.

[russellsnr]

Got any old hard drives about then have a look at one of these
Got one from Ebay to try and for the price and the fact that you use what you maybe have laying around makes it a cheap option.

[JR1]

That means I need to plan for some huge external storage or some cheap cloud storage.
Google drive is way expensive.

Cloud storage, oh yep, place MY images in the hands of others and their unreliable systems, errr no, I chose 16Tb of RAID

[JR1]

Got any old hard drives about then have a look at one of these
Got one from Ebay to try and for the price and the fact that you use what you maybe have laying around makes it a cheap option.

100% have used these for years. When I replace an old perfect small say 2Tb drive with a 6, I use these for backups, £15 on Ebay and amazon

[Donald]

Cloud storage, oh yep, place MY images in the hands of others and their unreliable systems, errr no, I chose 16Tb of RAID

Just for clarification.

Everyone is perfectly entitled to not like Clouds and what they offer. But to ensure that people reading this thread who may be new to them are not misled in any way, I'm not sure a claim that they are unreliable can be sustained. Indeed, the reason many people use Cloud storage is because of the level of security they provide and the knowledge that your precious files are stored and being backed up on the most modern and reliable of equipment.

[ajohnw]

Just for clarification.

Everyone is perfectly entitled to not like Clouds and what they offer. But to ensure that people reading this thread who may be new to them are not misled in any way, I'm not sure a claim that they are unreliable can be sustained. Indeed, the reason many people use Cloud storage is because of the level of security they provide and the knowledge that your precious files are stored and being backed up on the most modern and reliable of equipment.

To emphasise that aspect our govs retain enormous amount of information on similar systems as do many business organisations. They don't use some n terabyte drive they used redundant raid arrays on a scope that few could mimic at home. On top of that all decent services also back up and even use redundancy in the parts in the servers.

In short the weakest link is getting the data there in the first place.

Some use raid set ups I have. Raid can mean all sorts of things. In real terms that needs redundancy levels that few have. A minimal secure system might have the ability to loose 2 drives at the same time and also have one auto replace or have more in stock - the usual professional way including auto replace.

Then there are the disks themselves. Two options buy more of them - an array that has more redundancy or better drives. The magnetic storage density on the usual single platter disk is so high now that there is a lot of interest in self healing storage formats. More platters - lower density - higher cost. Lots of drives seem to be the current answer to that.

I have a docking station. Useful. No problem buying new drives for it either. There is still a problem though. Drives have 2 failure modes after a fashion. One caused by powering them up the other the result of continuous running. You can guess which gives the longest period of reliable storage. Then there is the keeping them cool aspect - noisy. Not a problem in a server farm. Another aspect is orientation in their slots. From my own experience they last longer horizontally than as the are usually stacked in bays. They do those this way because it aids cooling but it doesn't mean it's best for the drive.

One reason I wont be using cloud is upload rates and needs but there is no point making fictitious statements about them. On the other hand why is one cheaper than the other. Some aspects of that will be competition and scale some others will be the gear they use and how well they maintain it.

John
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[loosecanon]

I keep a backup on a USB 3 disk for day to day work. I also keep a server on my wifi network in my former darkroom - a brick shed separate from the house, to which I back up weekly, or after an important job. Key files like masters for books and my photographs I also copy to a series of hard drives which I store totally off site.

The problem with cloud is that you either pay for a service or the supplier can change the terms and conditions at will, such as has happened with photo archive services which have closed down, or Flicker and Getty images.

[mrinmoyvk]

Thank you everyone for suggestions, I also believe in local storage than cloud storage and might go for one.

[JR1]

Just for clarification.

Everyone is perfectly entitled to not like Clouds and what they offer. But to ensure that people reading this thread who may be new to them are not misled in any way, I'm not sure a claim that they are unreliable can be sustained. Indeed, the reason many people use Cloud storage is because of the level of security they provide and the knowledge that your precious files are stored and being backed up on the most modern and reliable of equipment.

Totally.

MY personal reason is that I and ONLY I have control over MY systems and no one else like Google, mine can not be hacked, I make sure I have sufficient redundancy and safety built in so that I am 99.999999999999999999999999% sure I will not lose anything.

If (sorry, WHEN) Google goes down ................................