need advice on backing up photos/videos

[garlan5]

Looking for thoughts on backing up photo's and videos.  I have a ton that i've taken of my kids and I'd like to make sure I don't lose them.  My problem is my smart phone doesn't link up to my p.c where i can explore the files on my sd or internal drive.  I have a Morotola Electrify.  My pc is an old dell from appx 2006.  I recently bought a portable hard drive so I can place my stuff on there.  I just cant seem to be able to up load my pics from my phone since my pc doesn't recognize it. Now my damn internal drive is near full along with the SD card.  Everything seems to be up to date on my computer as far as drivers go.  Since I've managed to ramble a little I'll seperate what my questions are.
 
1- What is the best/safest way to store a lot of photos and videos. Is the portable hardrive better than say using flicker/shutterfly.  Ideas and suggestions please.
 
2- When using the portable hardrive is it wise to just save the pics on there and delete from desktop  or keep them doubled up. I did move old pics from pc to the portable but just sent copies.  I was uneasy pulling the trigger on deleting the picture folders from my pc
 
3- Any other thoughts ideas concerning issues with Electrify not allowing me to explore in the folders from my pc.  (currently I can see all folders but I cannot see the contents to move)
 
4-I'm a novice, but should I use the 'cloud' backup on the portable hard drive or avoid paying for that feature (currently free trial version of cloud, I think)

 

[SumnerH]

3- Any other thoughts ideas concerning issues with Electrify not allowing me to explore in the folders from my pc.  (currently I can see all folders but I cannot see the contents to move)

You can mount the SD card as a regular drive or the phone itself as mtp.

https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/91213/action/auth

https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/70833/action/auth

 

[garlan5]

You can mount the SD card as a regular drive or the phone itself as mtp.

https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/91213/action/auth

https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/70833/action/auth

I've tried that with no luck.  Icons show up both ways when using windows explorer and the folders show up but the contents in the folders don't.  Tonight I hooked it up to a work pc and the contents show up.  So i'm wondering if it's a compatibility issue with my ancient crap machine at home.  I will go through the steps again and see if I overlooked something.  I haven't had issues with my older phones (samsung) or my wife's Galaxy3. 

 

[SumnerH]

I've tried that with no luck.  Icons show up both ways when using windows explorer and the folders show up but the contents in the folders don't.  Tonight I hooked it up to a work pc and the contents show up.  So i'm wondering if it's a compatibility issue with my ancient crap machine at home.  I will go through the steps again and see if I overlooked something.  I haven't had issues with my older phones (samsung) or my wife's Galaxy3.

Maybe the drivers they talk about?

https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/88481/action/auth

 

[JimD]

In response to #2 - I keep the most significant photos on my PC's hard drive, back up all photos to my portable HD, and also burn a copy of all image files to DVD.  The DVD's I use are Delkin Archival Gold which is sold by Amazon, B&H Photo and others.

 

[OttoC]

I have a second hard drive in my computer for my photographs. Additionally, the programs1 that I use to download from my camera memory card let me specify a back-up destination, for which I use USB-driven remote drives. My computer is about five years old, so I added a USB-3 card to it, and let me tell you, that is so much faster than USB-2.
 
In the computer before this one, I had a RAID 1 system with two discs. This worked nicely until the mother board bit the dust and I learned that my RAID controller was mother-board specific. If you want to use RAID, get a separate controller.
 
1 I use Nikon Transfer for one camera body and Lightroom 5 for the other. I'm new to Lightroom and I figured that using it with my new, full-frame DSLR would give me a better chance of learning it.

 

[Leather]

Are DVDs significantly better/safer than CDs for storing photos?

 

[HillysLastWalk]

I thought that recordable media degraded over time, and I would be concerned about using DVDs or CDs.  Unless something has changed recently, or I'm misinformed.
 
An "easy" solution for me - and I'm open to other ideas - is the USB Hard Drives.  But two.  I wouldn't trust one of those things to not break, and lose everything.  So all my photos get copied twice.  That's my lazy-man solution for now.

 

[ChinaCat2]

I think its still a good idea to store at least some of your photos offsite somewhere. You know, in case the house burns down. Unless you are periodically putting your dvd's or external drive into a safe deposit box, or sending them somewhere.
 
I keep  a fair amount of my pics on shutterfly and google. Once you have a sizable collection, most any service will charge you for it.  I like them to be shareable as well.  Flickr and dropbox are other options.

 

[RG33]

I just upload all my videos directly to YouTube after I take them. I think I have 225 videos in 3 years (mostly under 3 minutes).

 

[iayork]

1- What is the best/safest way to store a lot of photos and videos. Is the portable hardrive better than say using flicker/shutterfly.  Ideas and suggestions please.

 
Honestly, you should do both.  
 
First, get them off your phone.  Maybe I'm not understanding your description properly but it sounds like you're using the phone for long-term storage.  That's really risky, for obvious reasons.  So get them copied onto a computer somewhere ASAP.  
 
Once they're on your computer you need at least one backup, but if you have anything you actually value -- and if they're kid photos you probably do -- then they need to be backed up in two different ways, in two different places.  The simplest solution is external hard drive + cloud backup.  
 
The problem is that neither of these has a permanent, set-and-forget, solution.  Hard drives just aren't reliable over long times.  The companies who use lots of them (like Backblaze) suggest that after three years you should replace them ("After 3 years though, failure rates skyrocket to 11.8% per year").  So get a decent-sized hard drive and some backup software that automatically runs daily backups, and in three years get another one and move the old one into storage.
 
The problem with external drives is that they're local.  House fires, theft, floods, etc can destroy everything in the house, and then both your original and your backups are gone.  So again, sentimental value, also get a cloud backup.  There are a bunch of cloud backup options that will handle your whole hard drive.  Backblaze, Mozy, Crashplan, etc etc. But if you're only really concerned about photos, then there are a couple of services that specifically handle that.  The two I have experience with are PictureLife and Loom.  (The best of the group, Everpix, recently went broke.)  I use Picturelife because they have a 100GB plan that fits my needs, but if your needs are either in the 50 GB or 250 GB range I think Loom is a little nicer. Both offer background uploading of all the photos (and I think videos) on your computer, that actually works pretty nicely without thinking about it.
 
(I use these guys rather than overall backup plans because they add in easy web sharing and viewing and some other picture-specific benefits.)
 
The problem with cloud services is that they're always in flux. Everpix went broke. PictureLife and Loom say they're well funded, but maybe in a year they'll get bought by Yahoo! and go down the toilet, or whatever.  So you need to be ready to switch your service at intervals.
 
Hopefully all the problems go out of sync, so that your computer crashes on a different date than your online service goes out of service and your external drive gets stolen.   
 
Years ago I lost a couple of month's worth of photos of my oldest kid's first year, and that made me sad, so I tend to be fairly cautious about backups now,  But it's really not all that hard once you get over the inertia of actually dealing with it.
 
(Edit to add that Flickr and Shutterfly aren't really great backup solutions.  They're designed for photo sharing, not backup, so they tend to set stuff up for public viewing as a first default, which probably isn't what you want for your unedited stream of photos.)

 

[garlan5]

 
Honestly, you should do both.  
 
First, get them off your phone.  Maybe I'm not understanding your description properly but it sounds like you're using the phone for long-term storage.  That's really risky, for obvious reasons.  So get them copied onto a computer somewhere ASAP.  
 
Once they're on your computer you need at least one backup, but if you have anything you actually value -- and if they're kid photos you probably do -- then they need to be backed up in two different ways, in two different places.  The simplest solution is external hard drive + cloud backup.  
 
The problem is that neither of these has a permanent, set-and-forget, solution.  Hard drives just aren't reliable over long times.  The companies who use lots of them (like Backblaze) suggest that after three years you should replace them ("After 3 years though, failure rates skyrocket to 11.8% per year").  So get a decent-sized hard drive and some backup software that automatically runs daily backups, and in three years get another one and move the old one into storage.
 
The problem with external drives is that they're local.  House fires, theft, floods, etc can destroy everything in the house, and then both your original and your backups are gone.  So again, sentimental value, also get a cloud backup.  There are a bunch of cloud backup options that will handle your whole hard drive.  Backblaze, Mozy, Crashplan, etc etc. But if you're only really concerned about photos, then there are a couple of services that specifically handle that.  The two I have experience with are PictureLife and Loom.  (The best of the group, Everpix, recently went broke.)  I use Picturelife because they have a 100GB plan that fits my needs, but if your needs are either in the 50 GB or 250 GB range I think Loom is a little nicer. Both offer background uploading of all the photos (and I think videos) on your computer, that actually works pretty nicely without thinking about it.
 
(I use these guys rather than overall backup plans because they add in easy web sharing and viewing and some other picture-specific benefits.)
 
The problem with cloud services is that they're always in flux. Everpix went broke. PictureLife and Loom say they're well funded, but maybe in a year they'll get bought by Yahoo! and go down the toilet, or whatever.  So you need to be ready to switch your service at intervals.
 
Hopefully all the problems go out of sync, so that your computer crashes on a different date than your online service goes out of service and your external drive gets stolen.   
 
Years ago I lost a couple of month's worth of photos of my oldest kid's first year, and that made me sad, so I tend to be fairly cautious about backups now,  But it's really not all that hard once you get over the inertia of actually dealing with it.
 
(Edit to add that Flickr and Shutterfly aren't really great backup solutions.  They're designed for photo sharing, not backup, so they tend to set stuff up for public viewing as a first default, which probably isn't what you want for your unedited stream of photos.)

Thanks for the knowledge. I'm trying to get my photos off of my phone and into storage. Technically I'm using the phone a storage but only because I'm having issues synching to my computer. This and the other suggestions are very helpful. Thank you.

 

[garlan5]

I just upload all my videos directly to YouTube after I take them. I think I have 225 videos in 3 years (mostly under 3 minutes).


I do this as well when I can (no 4g or wifi in my area). Though I'm worried over long term if my family videos will be safe there. Say twenty years from now!

 

[aslot123]

I manage mine on the computer through Google Picasa.

I regularly back up the "My Pictures" directory (where all my pics are stored) to an external hard drive.

I also have a Carbonite account that backs up everything on my computer to the cloud.

Lastly, Google just updated Picasa to include the ability to back up everything (lower quality) to a Google+ account. It only took a few days to upload over 24k pics. It's nice having easy access to these files (stored privately unless I share them).