Prior To Formating My CF ...

[dave5252]

In response to the creator of a thread complaining about lost pictures on a compact flash disk, several responders suggested formatting the CF disk prior to each shoot.

If that's best practice, the pictures from the previous shoot should be stored some place prior to formatting the CF disk. CDs and DVDs delaminate, hard disks crash, internet site disappear … What is the current thinking on the best two places to store pictures?

 

[photoSmart42]

I vote for hard drives that you maintain regularly to check for errors, and replace at the first notice of error detection.

 

[m3photo]

Re: Hard Drives

I vote for hard drives that you maintain regularly to check for errors, and replace at the first notice of error detection.

Of course, this is the correct procedure. Everything is stored this way now. For those who are really worried about losing information, the data is stored in two or more separate drives and kept at different locations.

 

[PeterLeyssens]

Hi Dave,

In response to the creator of a thread complaining about lost pictures on a compact flash disk, several responders suggested formatting the CF disk prior to each shoot.

That's the first time I hear about this, but thinking about it, it may give a good CF the chance to remap bad blocks. As soon as a card gives me any problem, I replace it.

If that's best practice, the pictures from the previous shoot should be stored some place prior to formatting the CF disk. CDs and DVDs delaminate, hard disks crash, internet site disappear … What is the current thinking on the best two places to store pictures?

I don't work in "shoots", I usually work in "days". After a day, I put my card in my backup device (Nexto) to make a copy. I don't usually fill up a card quickly, so I just continue using it and make copies every day. This does fill up the backup device's hard disk with multiple copies of the same photo, but more recent devices avoid this.

At home, I copy the hard disk of my backup device to my PC. I have a full copy of all my data as well as a system image of my PC on a NAS. And I should make a backup of all my data on an external disk that I keep at my parent's place, but I forget. That should keep most data safe. Even without the off-site storage: in case my house is destroyed, I'll have more worries than just my data.

Conclusion: all hard disks, but enough to eliminate most worries.


Peter.