Best Ways to Store Digital Photos and Videos

Your digital photos and videos could be lost forever if there’s a problem with your computer. The best options for backing up this irreplaceable data…

Online storage providers

You can upload photos and videos to servers owned by online photo-sharing companies or other online digital-storage providers. Your photos will be stored in a far-off location, so that they will remain safe even if a fire or natural disaster destroys your home.

Downsides: Uploading many pictures or videos over the Internet can be extremely time-consuming, particularly with a slow Internet connection. You might have to pay a monthly fee to store more than a few hundred pictures. Your pictures could be deleted if the company goes out of business or if you fail to pay storage fees.

Best for: Those who have fast Internet connections… wish to share photos with far-flung friends and family over the Internet… want the ability to access photos from computers other than their own. Options include…

  • Flickr Pro Account.
  • Yahoo!’s digital photo service, Flickr, offers unlimited digital photo and video storage for $24.95 a year. Video clips cannot exceed 90 seconds each. www.flickr.com

  • Picasa Web Albums.
  • Google’s Picasa Web Albums offers one gigabyte of free online storage, enough for perhaps a few hundred digital photos. Additional storage is available for a fee.

    Example: 10 gigabytes cost $20 per year. http://picasaweb.google.com Google also offers free Picasa software that helps you organize and edit photos. http://picasa.google.com

  • Shutterfly.
  • This popular photography Web site offers free unlimited photo storage. Users cannot retrieve their pictures in high resolution online, but they can buy a DVD of their high resolution images from Shutterfly. The price of these “archive DVDs” varies depending on the quantity of photos involved.

    Example: A DVD with 1,000 pictures costs $19.99 plus shipping. Each additional 1,000 images adds $4.99 to the price. www.shutterfly.com

    External hard drives

    An external hard drive is similar to the hard drive built into your computer. An external drive offers added memory if your computer’s hard drive is filling up… or backup storage in case your computer’s hard drive fails.

    Downside: External hard drives do sometimes fail, particularly if they’re dropped even a short distance.

    Best for: Those who want to store large numbers of photos — even hundreds of thousands — for an affordable price… and want to back up and access photos quickly. Options include…

  • Seagate FreeAgent.
  • Seagate makes high-quality drives, and the company has excellent customer service.

    Example: Seagate’s 1-Terabyte (TB) FreeAgent Desk external hard drive can hold about 250,000 digital photos and up to 76 hours of video. It can be purchased for as little as $140. http://freeagent.seagate.com

    Western Digital My Book. Western Digital also makes reliable, affordable, easy-to-use hard drives.

    Example: Western Digital’s My Book Essential Edition 1-TB external hard drive can be found for around $200 and holds about 250,000 pictures and up to 76 hours of video. www.westerndigital.com

    Network Attached Storage

    Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices are similar to external hard drives, except that one unit typically contains multiple drives that can be set to back each other up.

    Downside: NAS devices can be several times more expensive than standard external hard drives… and significantly more complex to set up.

    Best for: Those willing to pay a little more for the added safety of “redundant” multi-drive storage… and who want easy access to backup files from multiple computers. Option…

  • Buffalo Technology LinkStation.
  • LinkStation is easy to set up and use, though transfer speeds are a bit slow.

    Examples: The LinkStation Pro Duo two-drive 2-TB model costs around $340. The four-drive, 4-TB Link Station Quad costs around $700. www.buffalotech.com

    CDs and DVDs

    Most modern computers feature disc drives that can “burn” files, such as pictures or videos, onto CDs. Many even record onto DVDs. Blank discs are relatively cheap when purchased in quantity — as little as 20 cents apiece.

    Downside: Recording onto discs is time-consuming, as is finding the pictures you’re looking for later. Your images could be lost if a CD or DVD gets scratched or degrades over the years.

    Best for: Those who want to back up a relatively small number of important photos — perhaps a few hundred — and feel better keeping backup in their home rather than at a distant server accessed through the Internet.

    Related Articles