How do you store your photos

[Emcam]

Well a new year of photographing weddings is upon me. Yep the ice is meltiing (sort of). I have been backing up my weddings on Archival DVDs.
I have been thinking about external harddrives from now on...what about online? I am pretty ignorant when it comes to online image storage. I wonder about the quality of the image when I wish to print it.
I am sure some of you are way ahead of me in this and here I am "again" asking for input.

[TonyK]

I would not trust online storage companies. They could hold you hostage or worse, go out of business or suffer a hack and you lose control of your images.

A multi-prong approach would be DVD and external HD.

[Watchin]

In order of preference (by space needed to store them):
Files on CD-R or DVD+-R ; Compressed files on CD-R or DVD+-R
Archival backup (greater compression) DVD+-R
Hard Drive

I agree with TonyK, don't trust someone else with your business.
On-line storage companies are a scam bubble waiting to burst and
catch a lot of people.
Don't be one!!

I tried hispeed hidensity Tape backups. The problem was I had to
copy the tapes to a new media and device with every system software
upgrade because the technology changed so much. I've not had that
problem with DVD or CD's yet. Just make sure you have a mechanism
to read and restore your backups later... (I've got some 2400' 12" 9 track tape
reals in my cellar that are only good for making confetti now to prove the
point).

[mattchase]

I also would be weary of online storage.

I have my files in at least two places, with a third "time to time" backup. First is they are all on my work computers hard drive (a seperate drive from the OS, just for file storage). Next they get backed up to an external drive in an uncompressed format. Third I will burn DVDs of the most important files from time to time and put them in a safe place.

I can understand the appeal of compressed backups, but have two problems with them. One is that in most cases, you can't simply access the backup and use the files, you have to use software to decode the files and then access them. I like to be able to just open the drive, find my file, copy it wherever I want. Second is along the lines of what has already been said, when software changes you need to keep up, or the files become obsolete. Yes, this could happen with uncompressed files as well, but I stick with formats that for the foreseeable future won't be going away, such as TIF, PSD, TXT, PDF, and DOC. I would use a compressed system as a secondary backup, but not as my primary one.

Since I started using the above method, I have had just one of my storage drives fail on me, but didn't lose anything since I had the external backup. I also knew it was coming, the drive was starting to have intermittent problems before it outright failed. In case of the nothing else is working worse case scenario, I have a couple of good data recovery programs on hand. I've not had to use them yet...at least, not on my computers. ;)

[Emcam]

That is the way I have been thinking about when it comes to online storage. I appreciate you all for that.
As I said I have been storing my images on DVD and may continue to do that. I usually save as PSD. I have been looking at Western Digital's large external HD and also the RAID setup by them.
Backup storage is such an interesting subject. I still have boxes - a -no crates of negatives and proofs from 35 years of weddings. Now thats storage that just takes up space..
I do worry about CDs and DVDs becoming obsolete. HDs may be safer.
As always I appreciate all your input and help.

[Watchin]

A couple of extra thoughts come to mind....

a) HD technology is changing faster than DVD or CD technology right now
b) Even the new CD/DVD drives can read the old media (and if it's stored
as files like Matt said, you should have no problem read them)
c) If you are going to RAID ... test it ! I've been bitten already by a Raid
that worked until a drive failed then OOOOPS the firmware/software has a
bug and we can't rebuild from the mirror, you just lost everything.

[Emcam]

Hmmm. good advice. Maybe a couple of 250GB or more externals that I could double backup would be a better choice..

[TonyK]

RAID is for pros only, meaning computer system folks. Too many RAID solutions kill files dead.

Seriously though, the less technology you have between you and your date the better off you will be should you need to use said back-ups.

Take care,

[mattchase]

Just to echo the raid sentiments, we had two of them at the studio and while they worked well (and saved us once), as Tony said leave raid to those who have the time to deal with their issues. A pair of large external drives would work well, just be sure you keep up to date on the backups.

My internal drive (for file storage only) is 300gb, external is 250gb, and I have about 220gb of free space on both. But then I'm not shooting a ton, and I am pretty strict when it comes to keeping only the shots I think are good. 250gb is probably a good size for anyone besides Joe (there is no drive big enough for him!), :)

[JB]

And I echo Matt, who echoes TonyK.