

- #Best hard drives for photo storage 2012 install
- #Best hard drives for photo storage 2012 Pc
- #Best hard drives for photo storage 2012 plus
- #Best hard drives for photo storage 2012 download
#Best hard drives for photo storage 2012 download
For example, you can use a QNAP TS-412 Turbo NAS for remote access to files when you're away from home, as a web server, or to download BitTorrent files. Most NAS servers can be used to stream media using UPnP (Universal Plug and Play), perhaps via a built-in TwonkyMedia Server. If you start with three drives, you can use RAID 4 or RAID 5. With two drives, you can get extra security by using RAID 1, where each disk mirrors the other. Some NAS drives can be expanded by plugging EHDs into their USB ports. (You can buy the drives separately: they are very easy to install.) Start with two 2TB drives so that if you run out of space, you can add one or two 3TB drives. You can buy NAS servers that are much like EHDs with Wi-Fi connections, but I'd go for a proper enclosure that can hold four or more 3.5in hard drives. However, if you have three or four PCs, one NAS could be cheaper than three or four EHDs. These have their own processor, memory, and operating system – none of which you need to know about – so they are more expensive than external hard drives.
#Best hard drives for photo storage 2012 install
If you have three or four PCs, or you want to share files, then it makes sense to install a network server or NAS (Network Attached Storage) drive. An alternative "off-site backup" is to upload essential data files to an online service, as mentioned last week ( Is it worth backing up to the cloud?).Īn external hard drive (EHD) works well if you attach it to one PC. In fact, you could make two copies of each DVD and ask a relative or friend to keep the spare copies for you.

If you have copies of your essential data on a desktop PC's hard drive, an external hard drive or server, and on DVD-RAM, you should be safe. I'd certainly take extra care to store DVD-RAM discs away from light (especially sunshine), heat and damp.Įither way, I think it's perfectly reasonable to use DVD-RAM as part of a multi-format backup system. The drawback is that DVD-RAM uses phase-change technology to write and rewrite the disc, like CD-RW. For this reason, it is used for archival storage of data." Indeed, according to Wikipedia, one of the format's advantages is: "Long life – without physical damage, data is retained for an estimated 30 years. DVD-RAM has even better error checking, so technically it's better for backups than DVD+R. DVDs will not last as long as CDs, but DVD+R seems to be the closest you can get to CD-R.ĭVD-RAM works like a floppy or hard disk, which makes it extremely convenient. However, I'd probably go for single-sided single-layer DVD+R, which has better error checking and synchronisation than the earlier DVD-R system. Unfortunately, there are several different types of disc (single/double-sided, single/dual layer etc), and many different ways to write the data. If I still made movies, I would do backups on DVDs, which can store up to 4.7GB of data. I do have some music files, but at home I still play the original audio CDs.
#Best hard drives for photo storage 2012 plus
In my case, it's photos (typically up to 4MB each) and articles (10K to 100K), plus a small number of original recordings in MP3 format (30MB to 100MB). Partly, it depends what you want to back up. I am thinking of switching to SD cards, which can now hold lots of data – 32GB is affordable – and take up very little space.

That was fine when I started, but it is becoming less viable every year. Their main limitation is that a CD will only store about 700MB of data. All my backups are on write-once CD-R discs, which I reckon is the best bet for data you want to last 10 or more years. The long-term reliability of optical discs is still unknown, so there are no certain answers. I am fairly sure everything is copied somewhere separate at least once, but we need a better system, possibly involving a network server.
#Best hard drives for photo storage 2012 Pc
We have an external USB hard drive on the main desktop PC as the primary backup, plus an assortment of thumb drives and also, in my case, a laptop. We are contemplating a new computer, which has drawn attention to the rather muddled state of our folders and backups, especially of photos. I have used these for DVD recording and they seem to work well without any initialisation or finishing faff. I have just been re-reading your article on Backing up digital photos, and would like your opinion of using DVD-RAM discs for this purpose.
