Time to off-load 400Gb: I need some advice as to what hardware to acquire to provide a viable long-term, external photo file storage solution. To date I have relied on my 1Tb Mac hard...

wiz302pa Loc: Henderson, NV

I need some advice as to what hardware to acquire to provide a viable long-term, external photo file storage solution. To date I have relied on my 1Tb Mac hard drive, but ..... is it time for a change.

I am not a professional and never will be, but I do enjoy this "sport" and hope to stay active with it.

Type/size of external drive?

Any Adobe Lightroom-specific considerations other than the need for a reasonable data transfer to/from speeds?

ken_stern Loc: Yorba Linda, Ca

Sorry I can't address your specific questions
For photos I always want & never EVER want to lose I copy those photos to M-DISC the brand name I'm currently using is Verbatim
For all others, I consider more/less short term I retain on hard drives both internal & external

My external drive is a Seagate 4tb solid-state drive

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

wiz302pa wrote:

I need some advice as to what hardware to acquire to provide a viable long-term, external photo file storage solution. To date I have relied on my 1Tb Mac hard drive, but ..... is it time for a change.

I am not a professional and never will be, but I do enjoy this "sport" and hope to stay active with it.

Type/size of external drive?

Any Adobe Lightroom-specific considerations other than the need for a reasonable data transfer to/from speeds?

Mac or PC? What type/speed external ports (USB 2,3…, Thunderbolt, etc)?

tcthome Loc: NJ

wiz302pa wrote:

I need some advice as to what hardware to acquire to provide a viable long-term, external photo file storage solution. To date I have relied on my 1Tb Mac hard drive, but ..... is it time for a change.

I am not a professional and never will be, but I do enjoy this "sport" and hope to stay active with it.

Type/size of external drive?

Any Adobe Lightroom-specific considerations other than the need for a reasonable data transfer to/from speeds?

I have used Western Digital My Passport external HDD & SSD with no problems for a few years now. Size = depends on how long it took you to rack up 400gb of files. I suggest getting 2 - 4tb HDD external drives &* keep one off site like at an office or safe deposit box & rotate them out after every big shoot/vacation or every couple of weeks or once a month. The other option is one HDD external copy & one cloud copy. Sounds like 4 tb will be enough for your needs. If you use software like Adobe Lightroom to edit & catalog & backup your photos it will backup all the LR info but not physically copy the photos. That you will need to do separately. There are backup programs that will only back up the new & or the updated files. Maybe someone who uses one could chime in or start another thread.

therwol Loc: USA

ken_stern wrote:

For photos I always want & never EVER want to lose I copy those photos to M-DISC the brand name I'm currently using is Verbatim

M-Discs are said to have a 1000 year life. They come in DVD and Blu Ray flavors. The largest Blu Ray discs are 100GB.

https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-98913-M-Disc-100GB-Surface/dp/B011PIJPOC/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3F6CC165QQ0PH&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.O3j2um4BAReq-EfNSszSn7VC26UZesNBkuPFRrjvgCbGOpCdufoD8YYVaTxpMUZtZdvfcrCZnFcHEQNRqdM0Oi76UBvjWldQHXh4SW_UsZfgRNmj1PuQuy2esHI3VbsNBR9ooMN0QGZBTymSCnPCxc8t1PaixrHcZUsdkHxIZ9I.Dw1J_Ga9umzc91rMCNoNgAtMm0qNNpP5C0NNa4r4Ek0&dib_tag=se&keywords=m-disc%2B128gb&qid=1712321780&sprefix=m-disc%2Caps%2C147&sr=8-1&th=1

I believe that most current Blu Ray burners can burn them but not all. My LG external Blu Ray burner can burn them. They can usually be read by a standard external Blu Ray drive. Even so, having only one backup is not a good idea. (House may burn down, etc.)

Many people will buy at least 2 and preferrably 3 external drives and make multiple backups in case of drive failure. One should be kept offsite. Others will keep one copy of their files in the cloud and one or two on external drives. These drives can fail. I have friends who can attest to that. SSD drives may be more reliable than the spinning HDDs, but if one fails, it may be impossible to recover data from them. Not so with HDDs, but recovery can be very expensive. In any case, MULTIPLE backups is a really good idea to avoid that nightmare and expense.

If you buy an external drive, format it exFAT. exFAT drives can be written to and read by Macs and Windows machines.

DaveyDitzer Loc: Western PA

therwol wrote:

M-Discs are said to have a 1000 year life.

If you buy an external drive, format it exFAT. exFAT drives can be written to and read by Macs and Windows machines.

Is there a particular advantage to using a blue ray rather than a conventional CD DVD player?

therwol Loc: USA

DaveyDitzer wrote:

Is there a particular advantage to using a blue ray rather than a conventional CD DVD player?

Backing up a large number of files to CD (700MB) or DVD (4.7 or 8.5 GB) is not really viable. It's viable if you burn high capacity Blu Ray discs (100GB), but a bit expensive. Conventional CD and DVD drives/players will not read Blu Ray discs. By they way, you can buy DVD M-Discs, but Verbatim has discontinued making them. I used them to archive some movies I recorded a long time ago off of cable that can't be bought or streamed. I could, and can play them in a DVD player.

If you're asking why not burn to conventional DVD-R or BD-R discs, the answer is longevity. The dyes is conventional recordable discs are not permanent. M-Discs can last 1000 years and are considered permanent storage. The government has used them for permanent storage of documents. Conventional discs are known to "rot" over time and become unreadable. The longevity can vary.

DaveyDitzer Loc: Western PA

but otherwise, no distinct advantage of Blu Ray over conventional DVDs?

therwol Loc: USA

DaveyDitzer wrote:

but otherwise, no distinct advantage of Blu Ray over conventional DVDs?

The advantage of Blu Ray discs over DVD discs is capacity. The advantage of M-Discs over conventional discs is longevity. Conventional discs can deteriorate over time and are not considered permanent storage.

DaveyDitzer Loc: Western PA

therwol wrote:

The advantage of Blu Ray discs over DVD discs is capacity. The advantage of M-Discs over conventional discs is longevity. Conventional discs can deteriorate over time and are not considered permanent storage.

thank you

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

The low cost, practical backup system is to get a pair of drives like this: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1415979-REG/wd_wdbwlg0080hbk_nesn_8tb_wd_elements_desktop.html

Then get a backup program you like. Mine is GoodSync.

Every few weeks or after a major addition of data to my primary drive, I sync with one of the drives. The next time, I sync with the other drive.

Actual time involved is minimal and the result is that I always have three copies of every file important to me.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

therwol wrote:

M-Discs are said to have a 1000 year life. They c... (show quote)

A very good, informative answer in all respects. I have an archive of MDisks, and as long as you can purchase them (and a drive to read them) they are the best archive media currently available. Of course, I also have a copy of my data in the cloud (Amazon S3). The chances of an MDisk surviving a fire, even in a “fireproof” container, are not good.

If the OP doesn’t need PC/Mac compatibility, I’d choose NTFS (more robust than ExFAT)

Still waiting for the OP to provide info. On his external interface so I can recommend an appropriate external drive.

ken_stern Loc: Yorba Linda, Ca

TriX wrote:

A very good, informative answer in all respects. I... (show quote)

By the way Trix -- Agan thank you for recommending the M-Disc several years ago
Ken S.

MJPerini

If you follow a real backup strategy 2 copies local 1 off site and one cloud you are very well protected.
M-disks are great but the weak link is how long readers will be available, although they are plentiful now , but CD's DVD's & Blue-Ray are already 'legacy media' . If you go that route be sure you buy a few well made readers.
Virtually every type of physical storage has not aged well.
M-Disc, makes a lot of sense to me and the world could use a widely adopted standard like that, but last I checked none of the really big digital content creators use them, because they produce too much data.
That doesn't mean they don't work, they do the question is how long.

pbearperry Loc: Massachusetts

I have my photos stored on my laptop, my desktop, and two external hard drives. I update the externals on New Years Day. I leave one external at a friends house in the neighborhood just in case my house burns down or gets broken into. yup, I'm paranoid. lol