There seems to be varying opinions as to whether CD or DVD has the best longevity (do a search on google). I have had corrupted CDs and DVDs, and over a 40 year career I lost 13 hard drives but much of the data on those hard drives was recoverablle so I would always go for hard drive, doesn't really matter whether internal of external, but if your pictures matter please do something there's nothing worse than losing images, worst of all are those family shots that mean so much

Ollie

At the end of year show at Duxford I filled my 2gb and a little under 1/2 of a 1gb. So you're not on your own regarding taking lots of photo's/
A slit second when shooting fast movers can make or break a photo.

I used to back up to CD and then delete the images from my hard drive to free up space. What I didn’t think of is that the CD was then not really a back up – being the only copy and CDs can fail, as I have found out to my cost losing over 600 images :(

My set up now is with 2 internal hard drives and an external one. I have my OS on C: and my images on D: and back up to the ext HD. What I keep meaning to do and this will be my 2006 resolution, is to take the external drive off site. I’m going to keep it at work and just bring it home overnight, say once/month to update my back up.

At the moment my ext HD sits on top of my system unit, so if some one broke in and stole my PC, or heaven forbid, there was a fire …. it doesn’t bear thinking about :eek: :eek:

Do you remember the series of adverts for the Pru a little while ago using poems? There was one that is particularly apposite here, and I hope they won’t mind me reproducing it

Photographs are smiles that last forever
Snowmen that can never melt away
Birthday celebrations caught in amber
Rescued from the vaults of yesterday

Faces that were once more dear than diamonds
Boys who kept you up until the dawn
Houses filled with bicycles and babies
Ghosts who left their shadows on the lawn

Photographs are holes in time’s grey curtain
Through them we can peek into the past
Call upon our parents and our children
Pop a cork with members of the cast

There they are, the days of jazz and joy-rides
Snaps of magic moments lit by laughs
If you ever find my house on fire
Leave the silver
Save the photographs

Makes you think doesn't it

Thanks everyone for the advice.. I think I should seriously consider getting an external Hard drive, now all I've got to do is find one!! Google here I come!
cheers
Jo

Your image files are proberably larger than mine. Mine are about 500k.

Yes you are quite correct Ollie, approx 160 images per Gb

As i have said elsewhere i plan to ungrade my camera so my photos will be more than 500k.

I use one of these (http://www.xsdrive2xl.com)for backup.

It is essentially an external USB hard drive but you can also use these in the field to copy your cards on to so you never run short of card space.

What are they like to use? I am going to get soomething like that for my gap year for image storage.

I also use a similar 20 gig harddrive and find them to be ok + when away I take my laptop.

Harry