thundra

What to store HD Videos on?, and digicam images while we're at it?

I've realized that CD-R's only hold so much video and images. My pile of CD-R's is getting a bit thick.

What do you store your treasured Video's and Images on? External Hard Drive?

aln

External hard drive, flash cards. Google DVD and CD rot. That media doesn't last very long. I would get invaluable pictures printed and stored.

jcbadabing

Hard to beat a network backup drive. I have a 1 Terabyte external drive, all the important stuff goes on there. Downloaded free software that has all my home systems automatically back up to the drive once a week.

And for those older pics that you only have prints for, consider scanning them and uploading to the drive as well. Those prints degrade over time, digital lasts forever.

t500hps

I bought an external HD and it comes with auto-backup software. Windows 7 has there own software included too, our desktop does it's own complete backup every night at midnight.

jobowker

The CD rot thing is way overblown. If you don't scratch them all up and as long as it's not a rewriteable, their average lifespan is over 100 years, or roughly 10 times the lifespan of magnetic media.

I keep them on a pc with mirrored hard drives (raid 1) and every night sync it to an external hd. Every time we download pictures and update the web site, we do another sync, following by a secondary sync to a second external hd. This way my data is on four separate hard disks, all behind a UPS to ensure clean power. When those drives get tired I'll copy them somewhere else.

Jeff42899

I use an external hard drive and backup to dvd data disks. They hold 4gb+ of data and are cheap security. I remember when I bought a 350GB external and thought I'd never fill it. Have a 2TB unit now and have kept building the dvd data disks over time.

thundra

I'm going to look into an external HD with 1-2 TB to start.

Thanks all.

Also going to need a new laptop in the future.

jrolin1

I have a secondary hard drive in the computer for regular backups using windows 7 backup. I use an external hard drive for off site storage and keep it at the office. I update the external as needed. The amount of data I have would take up a lot of DVDs and is not practical.

jrolin1

There are two main types of external hard drives. Portable - which has a laptop hard drive and is powered by the USB connection. This type is smaller and more convenient. The capacities are usually less and cost is higher. The regular external hard drive has a 3.5 inch hard drive and need a separate power supply. The advantage is that they cost less and have up to 2 TB capacity. They are much less convenient though.

thundra

Thanks jrolin1. I'll probably go with the USB-convenient one. The 700MB CD-R's were piling up and held very little video.

jrolin1

Here is a good deal on one if you are still looking. 50 bucks for a 500 gig portable from amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004CJ8ZIO/...NJX95N0J36BFNG