Backing up photos ( best advice) (Page 3): You are describing today's System Image. It's primary purpose is to create a snapshot of the boot drive (C:). This allows you to...

rck281 Loc: Overland Park, KS

Longshadow wrote:

Earlier OLD , old version options were only backup or restore.
Never used it since. I was not aware that you could open and select files in the newer version(s).
That's a GOOD thing.

You are describing today's System Image. It's primary purpose is to create a snapshot of the boot drive (C:). This allows you to, essentially, clone the boot drive on a new blank drive for disaster recovery.

jerrylh Loc: Texas

I used a passport for about 3 years and it failed. I then went to a WD 2TB usb 2 drive. Worked well but not big enough for me now. I just change to a WD 6 TB usb 3 drive. I did not time the difference in speed but it seemed to be about half. In addition, I do a full backup of my computer once a week that is about 400 TB.

PHRubin Loc: Nashville TN USA

jerrylh wrote:

I used a passport for about 3 years and it failed. I then went to a WD 2TB usb 2 drive. Worked well but not big enough for me now. I just change to a WD 6 TB usb 3 drive. I did not time the difference in speed but it seemed to be about half. In addition, I do a full backup of my computer once a week that is about 400 TB.

400 TB??? What in thunder is in there?

johngault007 Loc: Florida Panhandle

PHRubin wrote:

400 TB??? What in thunder is in there?

LOL, I thought the same thing. That's impressive and scary both at the same time.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

PHRubin wrote:

400 TB??? What in thunder is in there?

mjgreen53 Loc: Christchurch NZ

Hopefully the 400TB is a typo. Not sure anyone lives long enough to even produce that much information let alone back it up.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

rck281 wrote:

You are describing today's System Image. It's primary purpose is to create a snapshot of the boot drive (C:). This allows you to, essentially, clone the boot drive on a new blank drive for disaster recovery.

No, not a system image. The backup process (command) under DOS.
I did say it was OLD.....
Didn't meet my requirements/desires, used XCOPY instead and never looked at it again.
Shouldn't make assumptions.

PixelBoy Loc: Brooklyn, NY

I do short term B/U onto HD drives and long term onto optical drives. I don't completely trust magnetic spinning drives or digi circuit type [like thumb drives] 100%. Opticals like single layer BluRay and or DVD or even CD is better in my opinion. Just use HQ discs.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

PixelBoy wrote:

I do short term B/U onto HD drives and long term onto optical drives. I don't completely trust magnetic spinning drives or digi circuit type [like thumb drives] 100%. Opticals like single layer BluRay and or DVD or even CD is better in my opinion. Just use HQ discs.

Are HQ disks a brand?

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

PixelBoy wrote:

I do short term B/U onto HD drives and long term onto optical drives. I don't completely trust magnetic spinning drives or digi circuit type [like thumb drives] 100%. Opticals like single layer BluRay and or DVD or even CD is better in my opinion. Just use HQ discs.

FWIW - I used to use CD’s as backup/storage - but many became unreadable after a year or two. I would not trust too much.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Dngallagher wrote:

FWIW - I used to use CD’s as backup/storage - but many became unreadable after a year or two. I would not trust too much.

Wow, I'll have to go through my library....

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

CHG_CANON wrote:

Your personal back-up strategy is a balance of ris... (show quote)

Consider using the free Microsoft Synctoy as the software tool to facilitate your backups to the WD drive. This will enable you to only copy to backup the files which have been added or changed since the last backuup.

jerrylh Loc: Texas

I'm not used to quoting GB and TB and got a little mixed up. This is what I have:
19,000 Documents @ 407 GB
55,000 Photos @ 209 GB
30 downloads @ 30 GB
? on desktop @ 15 GB
Total these items: 661 GB.

My C drive has used 869 GB.
My last full backup was 360 GB.

I'm not 86 years old and started taking pictures when I was 12 and still have some of them.
I have 4 adult children, 10 grandchildren, 3 great-grandchildren.
Takes a lot of pictures of these to keep the family happy.
On documents, I was a writer and manager of TechWriters by occupation for 36 Years and did write a number of technical books. That is where all of this came from.
Jerry

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

DWU2 wrote:

Consider using the free Microsoft Synctoy as the software tool to facilitate your backups to the WD drive. This will enable you to only copy to backup the files which have been added or changed since the last backuup.

Here's where to get Synctoy: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=15155

jefflane

I copy from cards to a file server and back that up onto two other Seagate drives. I keep one of them in a fire safe.

I have found Fastcopy (freeware) to work great for incremental backups. With as few files as you have, Costco now has a Sandisk 1T USB 3 SSD for about $120. this would be a bunch faster than copying to a hard drive. I would expect 4,000 pics to take about 5 minutes.