Dedicated photo drive, minimum recommended size.
 

Hi all,
what is the minimum size of Hard disk drive that you recommend for photo storage, currently I am using a 40GB external HDD, that doubles up as the main hard drive in my desktop, if i get that up and running.

Its unwise to be dogmatic about these things. However by todays standards 40GB does seem small. My Laptop has 100GB and I also have an external 250GB., but it won't last long before it gets full. My 100GB is partitioned and the OS and programs are on one, data on the other, though most istransferred to the external ASAP. The point is though that memory is relatively cheap these days, and its easy to fit an additional drive in a desktop machine for not much money

I dont think there is a recommended HDD size for storing photos. The larger a drive is, more photos can be stored but the greater risk of loss through failure. I detract but I use CF cards that allow 200 photos then I change to another card. I take several cards home at the end of a day in case one fails or is lost.

I use 120GB disks that allow one year of my photography to be stored. I am upgrading to 200GB due to better cost/GB ratio. I always have two copies of all photos taken and processed in two separate places.

This is certainly a "how long is a piece of string?" type questions. Hard Drive storage is dirt cheap at the moment, have a look at the prices and work out which represents the biggest bang for your buck. Very high capacity drives tend to go for a premium, so betting something in the 200-250Gb range often works out cheaper per Gb.

I find external drives more flexible for longer-term storage and I've got several LaCie 250Gb USB2 drives which I can swap between laptop and desktops.

A 250Gb internal drive will cost you under £70 (unless you insist on shopping at PC world) a similarly sized external HDD will cost about £30 more. Many of us will spend this sort of cash on a 2Gb CF card, so it represents very cheap storage indeed.

I have a 300gb external hard drive totaly dedicated to photos, i also burn all my photos to cds which are stored elsewhere. I also store smaller copys of my images, which are used for internet forums etc on my laptop which has a 40gb hard drive.

My 40GB external harddrive will last untill I can afford a higher capcity drive, I've also got 2 30GB drives too.