Best way to store music, photos, etc;

[hatchbackgirl]

I have a lot of photos and music on my computer that I'd like to backup in case something were ever to happen to my computer.

Can someone tell me what would be the best method for making sure my photos and music are safe? I think something around 25-50GB would be more than enough if it was a portable drive or something like that.

Suggestions?

[Kwando]

burn them to DVD if you have a DVD burner... CD-R's... or just an external drive.

[Mario]

My case is a little more extreme, but I have 3 backups plus the original, so 4 copies total all encrypted. I use a Western Digital External Drive, Burn to DVD's, and then a remote off-site storage in case the place burns down. You can get WD MyBooks 160GB in size for ~$85-90 shipped.

[hatchbackgirl]

yeah, I probably have under 5,000 photos and around 700 songs right now but of course that will change and I need room for expansion. =)

thanks!

[Mario]

yeah, I probably have under 5,000 photos and around 700 songs right now but of course that will change and I need room for expansion. =)

thanks!

In all honesty, I'd do just an external WD drive then. Good price, reliable, etc. Better than what most people have anyways.. :ethug:

[nicklk]

:werd: x2 on an external....

They are dirt cheap right now for alot of space too, I just saw a WD MyBook 200G in Circuit City for $89 or 99 I think it was...I bought a 150GB last July I believe and I've already filled 117GB and still have about 15 more to transfer over....the photography fills em up quick!

[Nightfall]

I would vote an external hard drive as well as far as price to storage capacity ratio. Though hard drives will fail mechanically unlike solid state memory, the price of solid state memory for the amount of storage space you are looking for would be quite ridiculous. Not to mention don't let your little tike get ahold of it as dropping it wouldn't be good either.

[Mark_H]

I vote external drive and then backup to DVDR for stuff you really don't want to lose.

[john]

I've got a 500 gig external drive, a 160 gig external and a 120 gig external. The big drive is for my work data, the other 2 are for moving data from home to work to customer sites to ??, as well as storing about 55 gig of music.

I put everything I want to backup on DVDs, data-wise. I do regular backups of my windows laptop to the 500 gig drive.

If I were you, I'd get a dual layer burner (8+ gig per platter) and some dual layer media. External devices can and will fail, and w/o a decent backup of the failed device, you will be SOL.

[hatchbackgirl]

the most important stuff to me is my pictures, I'm not a professional photographer or anything but if I lost some of the photos on my computer I would be devastated. Most of them are irreplacable.

[Mario]

At least you realize it now, and not after it fails, like most people.

[hatchbackgirl]

At least you realize it now, and not after it fails, like most people.


yeah, I like to try and prevent more stress in my life. :)

[hatchbackgirl]

I found this one... I'll probably go ahead and get it.

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?pfp=cat3&product_code=342078&Pn=Personal_Storage_3200_160GB_Hard_Drive