Some storage/organizing advice?

[StacyJ]

Ok, I know there are lots of threads out there about this. . . I have already decided HOW to organize, but need some additional thoughts. I have moved all of my sb supplies to an external hard drive and directed time machine to back that up as well as my main. I am planning on deleting the supplies from my main hd because I would like to import older photos, so need the room. (I am not running out of room by any means yet, just would like to make sure I have plenty of space.) Now - would 'you'. . . - back up the supplies additionally onto a cd/dvd or flashdrive or . . .? - do you think what I am doing is ok? Would you also delete from your main drive??

Any thoughts would be oh so helpful! I appreciate it -

Stacy

[anxela]

I back up with MozyHome, both my photos and my digital supplies. So I have my digital supplies online and on an EHD. Mozy is, as far as I know, the only online backup for EHD's(?).

I don't keep anything on my main drive (laptop), except for a couple of photos to scrap when I'm traveling with train, and the latest purchases of digital supplies (and some tried and trusty favorites).

Mozy is working great for me, I had some problems just after switching from Windows to Mac, but they have great customer service and worked things out for me in a short time.

When I started backing up with Mozy, by the way, I made sure I backed up all my photos before configuring it to back up the digital supplies as well. The initial backup takes "forever", and the photos are more important than my digital supplies, so I figured that was the way to go.

One way to save on space is to not back up the digital files, but the zips that you download. They take less space, and hopefully you won't need them anyway. Make sure to rename the zips if you use this method, as the names of zip files tend to not show the content. This will normally work if you use ACDSee, as the database there works with file location and not metadata, but if you write metadata to the files, this might not be the thing to do, as you would have to redo the tagging.

I think backing up to cd/dvd is a good thing to do, but I'm to lazy to do that. I would definitely keep all my files in two locations though. What you choose is up to you and what works best for you. But if you choose online backup, you might as well back up your digital files in addition to your photos. The price is the same no matter how big your backup size is. (At least with Mozy and Carbonite. Carbonite won't back up EHD's, although they say they're working on a solution for it.)

[StacyJ]

Thanks so much Anxela - that helps my thought process!

Stacy

[digigrandma]

Stacy, like Anxela, I keep only what I consider basics and current favorite kits on my computer. I delete the kits after I've saved to my EHD and burned to a CD or DVD. I'm faithful about keeping up with the backing up on CD's.

Same with my photos except that I also upload them to Shutterfly in addition to storing on the EHD and burning to CD's. I only keep the current photos I'm using to create layouts on my computer.

I should look into online storage, too.

[StacyJ]

Thanks so much for your input Merrilee!! I think this is exactly what I am going to do. Everything is copied to EHD, now I just have to back up to CD's and delete from my main hard drive.

[anke]

I do the same as Anxela