Tech question???

[Jen D]

I am trying to clean off a bunch of stuff on my EHD... but even when I am removing a ton I am not gaining any space on the hard drive?? What do I need to do to clean this up so that I have more space?

Thanks for your help... I was tearing out my hair last night!!

[Cassie Jones (1gr8muggle)]

It's the photos that suck up most of the space. What kinds of things do you have on there? Videos are HUGE space hogs, too.

[Jen D]

Pictures and my digi supplies. I deleted over 1000 pictures and I only got maybe 15G back or so.

I thought maybe there was a way to clean it up more effectively than just deleting items...

**Is it necessary to have pictures on my backup EHD if I have them burned to a DVD?

[KerryMac]

I kind of have a bit of OCD when it comes to backing up my photos! I have them burned onto a DVD and backed up on 2 EHDs. Eek. I am considering buying a small HD just for scrapbooking bc the pages take up so much space (I don't flatten them).

[wookiegirl]

Jen, I've heard that DVDs (and CDs too) have a limited shelf life - some people even say as little as five years (even less for the RW formats). Because they're dye based, rather than molded like commercial CDs and DVDs, they're not as stable.

I back up all my photos to an EHD once a week. I also upload my favorites to Shutterfly at the end of each month and this year, I've set a goal to get them all printed when I upload. I figure that should cover me: one copy on the EHD, one in a remote location, and one hard copy. I'm not anal about it or anything.

[ptknox]

Jen...are you emptying your Recyle Bin after you delete the files? If not, they are still taking up hard drive space ... just stored somewhere else until you empty the Bin.

[hguenthe]

Jen, unfortunately 15g for 1000 photos sounds about right for raw files (15 meg each).

I just did some clean up myself to get photos off my main hd and onto my ehds and was also a little sad it didn't give back as much space as I was hoping.

[Jen D]

Originally Posted by wookiegirl

Jen, I've heard that DVDs (and CDs too) have a limited shelf life - some people even say as little as five years (even less for the RW formats). Because they're dye based, rather than molded like commercial CDs and DVDs, they're not as stable.

I back up all my photos to an EHD once a week. I also upload my favorites to Shutterfly at the end of each month and this year, I've set a goal to get them all printed when I upload. I figure that should cover me: one copy on the EHD, one in a remote location, and one hard copy. I'm not anal about it or anything.

Really!!! I wonder why I would burn anything at all! I might just buy another EHD...I have so many pictures... I have at least 9 years on CDs. I better check some of the older ones.

I am considering an off site location.

ARGGGGHHHH!! This is so stressful... the cd's don't last... the EHD can crash! Seriously can't somebody come up with a better method with all of this technology we have!!!

[cheska99]

I use an off-site backup and an EHD. I figure that if fire devours my computer, it will get the EHD too. The "cloud" backup is painless and cheap: $5 a month. I've more than once gotten a file back from the cloud backup, so I have confidence in it. There are lots of services out there. I use Carbonite, and David Pogue, whom I trust mightily in all things technical,has recommended Sugar Sync.

[LisaD]

I had heard about the CD/DVD not being all that safe to house photos. So my goal for the year is to take all of the old photo CD/DVD's and download them to my EHD.
I guess I should look into an offsite storage of them as well.

[AllynD]

Oh, wow. Now you have made me worry.... More than usual....

[whatnext]

dunno if this would help, but i'm thinking HARD about subscribing to Carbonite, which backs up your entire hard drive. i'm starting to think that the answer to all of this is a return to hard copy.

[JesseEdwards]

make sure you empty your trash/recycle bin like Pattie said. Then you should see you space recover.

[anke]

the problem with Carbonite or Mozy both is that you have to keep the files on your compy in order for them to stay backed up. If you move them to a different EHD (not connected to your compy), they will be deleted with your next backup (Carb. or Mozy don't see the files anymore, so they are not there and will be deleted from their storage) That is the one drawback I haven't found a way to get around. I keep all my pics on my connected EHD, but it is running low on memory too. I wish I had the answer

[sawdust]

I have my 500G EHD just for scrapping. Being a newbie, that is plenty for me now. I have a 8G flash drive I use for working on current project.

I regularly burn the stuff to DVD's to free up any space I need.

Anke. Glad you mentioned about Carbonite. I was just about to use them now I want to rethink it a bit.

I have hear of the new tetra I think they are called. Does anyone have one of those. I heard they take a whammo of power to run. If I recall right they have enough space to hold a copy of every book in the Library of Congress. Whoa!!!!

[cheska99]

About the problem of Carbonite dumping the files that are no longer on your computer: I wonder if it would be possible to have a separate carbonite account for your EHD(s). Anyone know?

[digigrandma]

Rebecca (wookiegirl), I'm so glad I'm reading this. I thought I was safe with diligently backing up my digital photos to CD-R on a regular basis and also uploading to Shutterfly and one other photo storage site. I have not been ordering prints of photos, especially if I use them on a layout that gets included in a Shutterfly album. Now, I'm thinking I should order print copies of my favorites.

Arrrgh! Do you realize how many print photos and 30 mm slides I have from 50+ years of photo taking? It is a full time job organizing them into acid free envelopes and storing in archival boxes.

Thanks for starting this thread, Jen. It is good to review what we're doing.

Oh, and, just a thought: We've got to enjoy life, too! I'm going to try not to get too worried! I'm going to keep ordering Shutterfly albums of my favorite layouts because then I'll know my favorite photos are safely in a book for at least maybe one more generation to see!

[anke]

Originally Posted by cheska99

About the problem of Carbonite dumping the files that are no longer on your computer: I wonder if it would be possible to have a separate carbonite account for your EHD(s). Anyone know?

The problem is that the EHD would have to be connected to a computer in order to have the files read by Carbonite. As far as I know Carbonite doesn't support EHDs at this point, that was my reason for going with Mozy. I guess we have to find some system we feel comfortable with and like Merr said, don't over-agonize.

[Debbyo]

I'm with Anke on that, I used to use Carbonite and was very satisfied, until I got my 500GB EHD...then I found that it wasn't getting backed up. That's when I went with Mozy and I haven't any complaints. You configure your computer drives and EHD as to what you want it to back up and it does it regularily, behind the scenes and then lets you know its been done. In answer to Jen D's plight, I ran into the same thing when I was with Acronis. It puts a mirror of your entire computer -all drives and files and it put it into my EHD. I soon ran low on space there and tried to delete it, but it still seemed to stay there hogging the EHD...I got my "computer guy" to come over and look at it and he was baffled till he found that my EHD had its own drive on it and the back up was hidden there. It really surprised him, he had never seen any set up like this before. BTW I should mention that I have HP's Personal Media that slides into my HP Media Edition computer. Hope that helps you, Jen if you have the same kind of set up, check out the manual on your EHD and see if it has its own drive.

[dstnd2be]

Yeah my EHD crashed just last week, lucky for my I was only using it as a safety backup so all my files were still on my HD. I have started burning things to DVD right now- just to be safe!

Honestly the most reliable storage I have found are those darn memory sticks! I have never ever had problems with those - except they aren't large enough!

[dugarner]

As far as using CDs and DVDs, I don't think someone should panic if you back up to an EHD, an online service, and CDs/DVDs. The chances of the EHD failing and the CDs becoming unreadable at the same time are small; and honestly, even if home-burned DVDs only last 5-10 years, I can almost guarantee none of us is going to leave our data untouched that long. We have to keep it moving from one medium to the next. Floppies were dangerous because that format stayed around so long; actually, tape media have been found to be most reliable. My DH thinks we're only 2-3 years away from not seeing any more printed media like CDs. Everything is digitized on servers. Music on CDs is dying (bring back vinyl!), movies are just about gone. The philosophy is just keep your data moving; move it to the EHD, move it to your computer, move it online.

For photos, I think paid sites like smugmug are great options, though it only backs up photos. You get redundant backups and they won't delete your stuff, like free sites can do. As awesome as Shutterfly is, I don't trust it as a backup source. It's free, and there are no guarantees. I've never checked into an online backup service for all my data b/c I need less than 1/2 TB to back up everything.

I recently had to rebuild my EHD (It's WD, and it's pretty hinky) and I pushed everything off onto DVDs. I thought I had everything, and formatted my drive, and then---oops---I realized I didn't transfer my Disney pictures. Two vacations, 2000 pictures, permanently gone. All I have is the ones in my scrapbook, about 200 of them.

This is a great discussion to help me figure out the best data storage solution I can! Thanks, ladies.

Sarah