rthompson10

My dell desktop where I've been storing/editing all of my pix has run out of hard drive space, to create space now while I decide on a fix I've offloaded onto a little passport backup drive. I think my best bet is to get and external hard drive and move all my photos to that

Thoughts? Also aware that I probably need additional backup in addition to the passport drive
Thanks!
RT

twowindsbear

First off - run a 'drive cleanup'prigram to actually remove the files thar you've deleted, and to get rid of other 'junk' on your HD. Defrag the drive too. This may solve your problem. But an ext HD is good to have anyway.

Carl D Loc: Albemarle, NC.

I agree with twoindsbear except that I actually 1 external and 2 wd pocket size drives which I switch regularly and keep separate from the house plus I use the cloud also.

Rongnongno Loc: FL

That is the best option but clean up does not go far enough.

Windows keeps every patch installed onto a computer and these are not only are not needed but can take gigabytes of space then you have all
temp files created by programs and these are not cleaned either... So if you want to scrub your disk you need to check not only windows but other places that are sometime obscure.

An external drive is much slower than an internal one so if you can, install an internal one, it is really easy to do (unless you have a laptop).

As to back-up, that is another beast altogether.

What I would do is:
- As suggested by twowindsbear deep clean the drive. Defragment will not change the space available but it will not hurt anything either.
- Get a USB drive (as you did or intend to) and use that drive for archiving purposes, meaning that all the data (image or not) that you do not use but want to keep for whatever reason should be transferred there, on regular basis. In between archiving times that new drive stay tucked away, not used, unless you realized you have archived something too fast.

You will be shocked by how much 'dead' files you (and I) keep 'just in case' and never use again...

orrie smith Loc: Kansas

you are growing and learning. there are many external hard drive options with huge storage. I presently have 3 external drives permanently plugged into my desktop, with extras for backup. you should create a system with external drives, plus mirror drives, plus backup drives. you should also create a DVD backup for all of your photos in case of drive failures. it may be a pain to create all of these backups, but when (no if) your hard drives fail, you will be glad you went to the trouble.

rthompson10

I realize internal drives are better, however my PC is older(5 years old) so I'm worried that putting in an external drive would not make sense

twowindsbear

Add an internal drive. Just use for data, not programs - if, when, you get a new 'puter just transfer thaf drive with your data to the new one.

Again IMHO

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

There are many approaches, this is one of the ones that I use. I have about 20TB of disk on my desktop machine. I totally agree with putting core data on separate disks, either internally or externally.

Internal is good if you don't mind opening up the box and putting new hardware in and configuring it. Using SATA disks will typically give best performance, or USB 3 for external if you have that available. Also, if following this route you could also consider getting an SSD for the main system disk (500MB or more is good) and then using your existing disk for data. A back up disk could be either internal or external. Many people also use cloud backup as an extra measure of protection.

What is your specific computer model? With that information we may be able to offer more specific advice.

rthompson10

Its a dell xps 8700
i7 3.4 Mhz
8 GB memory
64 bit OS
2 GB free out of 909 gb
have usb3 ports available- however when moving pix to my WB passport it seemed to run slowly

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

Oops, 500GB for SSD...

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

Thx, Any specs on the passport model?

Initially it looks though your main disk is so full that it has not enough space free to give the OS any working room which could make system just grind to a halt.

alandg46 Loc: Boerne, Texas

Here is what I would do:
First-Move all my pictures, music, data to your external.
Second-Get a second external and backup/copy the first to the second.
Third-Check your current "C" to see how much room it has now that all your "stuff" is gone.
Fourth-Buy an SSD that gives about 100gb more than what is left on your current "C"
Fifth-Copy"C" to the new SSD.
Sixth-Format your old "C" and use it for your stuff along with a new internal 2tb drive

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

I have six WD My Passport Ultra 2TB External Hard Drives. I use two redundantly (one a back-up of the other) for archiving my photographs. Another two are used the same way for Music (mp3, Wav, and Flac files), databases, spreadsheets, word-processing, and other personal files. The last two currently are not being used. They will likely be used for system back-up restore use for our two PCs. And I have the two used 320MB HDDs from my old laptop as back-up / archive for files from that older computer. Those are as duplicates as well. And finally I have a 1TB External HDD that I can use for temporary storage or for moving large amounts of data from one PC to the other.

I only have the External HDDs connected and running when I use them. Eventually I may install second Internal HDDs in our two Dell Desk Top Towers. I only keep newer images or ones that I am working with or that are favorites on my PCs' HDDs. I don't know exactly but I must have somewhere between 300 - 400 GB of image files (Raw (DNG), PSD, TIF, and JPG).

Yes, your computer should be defragged regularly, and disk clean-ups run. Newer versions of Windows do a lot in the background automatically.

I don't know what you have in your Dell PC now but you might consider getting a couple new Internal 2 to 4 TB HDDs. You can store a lot on those. With a newer Dell XPS8900 you could easily have a 1 to 2 TB "main" HDD plus two 2TB internal drives for back-up and archiving. How much RAM do you have. Try for 16 to 32 GB.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

For many years, I've installed a second hard drive in my new Dells. I currently have a 4TB drive that holds all my data. Only the OS and programs are on the Samsung 500GB solid state C drive. When getting a new computer, I can transfer the D drive from the old to the new.

You can also buy a larger C drive and copy the old one to it. There are programs and cables that make that very easy. I got one free with the Samsung drive. These prices are absolutely ridiculous.

http://smile.amazon.com/SIIG-USB-SATA-Adapter-JU-SA0812-S2/dp/B008TYI434/ref=sr_1_35?ie=UTF8&qid=1457698232&sr=8-35&keywords=disk+copying+cable

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

I have the same computer but upgraded ram to 32 GB usinh=g crucial memory Have an Internal 256 SSD drive and a 1 TB internal all my photos are on external drives all backed up by BackBlaze. I am upgrading my internal SSD to 512