In preparation for our new computer arriving on Monday, I have been doing a chore that we’ve been avoiding for years - rationalising and sorting out our digital photos.
They are now (mostly) in dated folders with somewhat meaningful one or two word descriptions - “2006-08 Cornwall”, for example. There are also no duplicates any more.
Since 1999, between us we have amassed 15,506 photos. They take up 21Gb of hard drive space. The question then is what to do with them - how do we back them up?
The options would seem to be;
Multiple CDs (not sensible - only 700Mb each)
Multiple DVDs (worrying - only 4Gb each)
External Hard Drive (or two, in case of failure)
Online Storage (Amazon S3, Carbonite, Mozy, etc)
At the moment I am thinking about using Amazon S3 allied with the Jungle Disk client. I’ve used it a little in the past, but the major stumbling block is terrible upload speeds (even over DSL). It would take several months just to upload the photos… add 30Gb of music to that, and we have a major problem.
The external hard drive solution is persuasive, but you need more than one - hard drives fail. People rave about personal RAID solutions such as the “Drobo”, but that still doesn’t defeat the house burning down. If a mirrored backup hard drive was stored “off site” as we say in the business, it might be a much better option. Where though? In the shed? At a relative’s house?
What do you use for a backup? (this is where you tell me you have no backup, isn’t it…)