Jeffcs Loc: Myrtle Beach South Carolina

I'm a Mac book pro and I use WD check their website the ones I purchased are 4TB and don't need to be plugged into the wall

joseph premanandan

i use "seagate" as external drive to store my images and i am pleased with that

Japakomom Loc: Originally from the Last Frontier

I use an external hard drive that I connect through one of the USB ports to store my photographs. I use Lightroom and I choose my external drive to upload my photos. Works well. A good place to look for external drives is through Other World Computing (www.macsales.com) they can guide you to some of the easiest and best external drives for your particular MacBook.

CPR Loc: Nature Coast of Florida

This can be complicated, OR NOT! If you opt for not complicated just go to Walmart or Amazon and buy a 1, 2 or 3 terabyte external hard-drive. Plug it in and do a copy of the entire folders you want to work with. Suggested would be Pictures, Documents, email folders etc. Copy them into a folder on the external drive with the date. If the files are critical to you or yours then get two externals drives and copy the files to both.
Now - DISCONNECT the external drives and Delete all the data files you want to. Be careful not to delete program or system files!!!!
Later on you can connect the drives again, sort the files in the pc by date and copy all the ones newer than the date of your backup folder to a new folder with the new date.

TN. Photo taker

Not a complex problem or question! Just get a 1 TB external hard drive. Actually you should have two one on property and one stored somewhere else. Back up to the one on property and switch it with the one stored elsewhere. Then change them to keep current photos stored away from your computer.

toxdoc42

I also love Carbonite. I also have Microsoft "one drive" which is a great place as well, it is set up nicely to handle photos. Although the upload/downloads are not totally intuitive, they are useful and there is an app for my Android phone that works remarkably well!

sandiegosteve Loc: San Diego, CA

Yes, the 1 USB drive will work and isn't complicated... until is is. Drives do fail. External drives are the most susceptible. I've had about 6 fail over 15 years (4 people in family and 6+ computers including work machines). That isn't a lot, but any failure is complete data loss in most cases.

For this "not complex" scenarios above, I suggest getting 2 and moving your files to each one (2 copies). Keep them in different places. It can become hard to keep them in sync (complicated).
This is where a NAS helps. It is external and can handle drive failures without data loss.

I don't mean to bash anyone who has a simple solution. I don't want you to loose data. Think through your head what would happen if that one drive failed. How much data would you loose? What if the files system becomes corrupt?

Cloud storage theoretically has RAID/redundancies built in, but moving a lot of data from the cloud is slow. That makes on-site (external drive) so nice.

I buy drives in pairs and write scripts (ok, search google for a copy script and use it) and keep them in sync. I also have a NAS for all the family computers that backup to it every other day. I back up the NAS to another external drive occasionally. I've survived drive crashes with minimal downtime.

toxdoc42

I am a beloved is wearing a belt and suspenders. I have an external 1 terabyte hard drive on which I back up all of my files, texts and photos, music, etc. In addition I have Carbonite back up both the computer and external hard drive. The storage is essentially infinite and can be accessed from anywhere. I also use "one drive" for backing up my photos and manuscripts I write. Total extra cost for one drive and carbonite subscriptions is under $150, and gives me great peace of mind!

jackpinoh Loc: Kettering, OH 45419

Buy two USB 3 hard drives. Keep newest photos and favorites on your laptop and move everything else to the first hard drive. Move photos to the hard from within your photo processing application, if you use one. That way all photos are accessible from your processing application when the first hard drive is plugged in to your laptop. Back up both your computer and your first hard drive to a second USB hard drive using the Apple Time Machine application. 4TB USB 3 hard drives cost around $110 each at B&H or Amazon. You just plug them in.

SusanFromVermont Loc: Southwest corner of Vermont

You have gotten some good advice here, but I will add a few comments.

First, buy the best external hard drives [xHD] if your photos mean a lot to you. Jerry suggested HGST, which I have heard is very good - you just have to purchase a case to put it in. If money is an issue, buy regular consumer grade such as WD My Book, but make sure you have your working device, plus 2 backup devices. Cloud storage is also a good idea. I am planning on getting an account with Backblaze, which comes well recommended.

Second, if your images are filling up your computer's HD, you want to get an xHD that is at least twice as big. If you anticipate increasing the amount of photos you will save, go even higher. My largest xHD is 4TB and it is filling up fast. Rather than buy larger, I plan to buy the same size, divide up my data and put certain parts on each. [I have ~17,000 images, and also save the My Documents folder, which is quite large.]

bdk Loc: Sanibel Fl.

Buy an external drive, or two external drives. then just move the pix to the drives, one is a backup to the other. Its pretty much just plug and play, pretty easy to do.

cambriaman Loc: Central CA Coast

I have a 2Tb external drive. It is backed up by another 2Tb head drive plus I use iCloud.

Spiney Loc: Reading, PA

As a 3 year Carbonite user yes be aware that if you remove the file from your local hard drive, Carbonite will delete it after 30 days.

rcdovala

I don't think that you're going to find a 2 TB SOLID STATE DRIVE for $60 - 80.

Kuzano

One (the one in the computer or first external) drive is the originals!
Two drives is original and copies (one backup)
Three drives is "redundancy" and an attempt at real security.
One more drive off site is smart and insurance.

No Cloud site offers any form of backup until after you have the first two external drives in place.

25 years of computer and network consulting. Started building and selling in 1987. Started my own consult firm 1997.