Dear Friends,
I photographed and documented every event in my precious child’s life, and now the digital sh*t has hit the proverbial fan, and my computer memory is full.
Houston, we have a problem. How many mamas are right there with me, photodocumenting everything, and unknowingly filling up your entire computer memory? Go check your storage, and get back to me. My daughter is five, in case you want to gauge how long it will take to fill up your computer memory.
Compounding this problem, in the past five years, since becoming a mom, I have become technologically incompetent. I used to manage data in neatly organized Excel spreadsheets, filled with complex rules and equations, and knew how to pilfer music on Napster like a pro. Not like I actually downloaded any of that ill-begotten, illegally-shared music; but I knew how to download it. Just in case. Even when I didn’t exactly know how to do something technology-related, I felt confident in my ability to figure it out. Now, I am 40, and while I still roll my eyes and jump in to fix my mother’s technological snafus with her phone, I find myself suddenly unsure how to set up any new hardware or software. I am afraid to ruin the functional yet excruciatingly slow existing systems that I set up before I lost my technological mojo. Is this cluelessness a byproduct of age? Is it the chronic sleep depravation of an insomniac single mom?
When did I change from the computer helper to the person needing to be helped?
About a month ago, a friend asked me for computer advice because I seemed like someone “good with technology.” Do I give that impression to you? Do I seem “good with technology”? I most certainly am not. I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time. If I am your only source of technological information and support, you are in deep trouble. Believe me, because I am right there with you, looking for technological support. Regardless, I have a solution to my photo storage dilemma. Our photo storage problem, right?
First, a word of caution. My advice is, at best, something that works for me. I am writing this because I suspect that with the proximity and ease of cell phone cameras to capture photos and videos, I am not the only person in this situation. Please be careful though, because if you’re like me, you treasure each and every photo. Check and double check your copies on your external hard drive(s) and online storage before you delete any photos.
Here are the three easy steps I took to safely save my photos, and free up space on my computer:
- I cried, moaned, and generally carried on like a two year old on a nap strike. Please feel free to skip this step. It’s not essential.
- I did some research, and discovered that the best solution for me is to save my photos onto an external hard drive, and to also save them online. Make sure the what you’ve copied to your external hard drive(s) and on line storage is functional before you take step 3.
- I deleted all the older photos from my computer, naively trusting my external hard drive, and online storage to keep my precious photos and videos safe.
Let me explain.
External Hard Drive:
I purchased an external hard drive. I know a couple of professional photographers who save photos in duplicate onto two different external hard drives. That is certainly an option, and not overkill either. I decided to use two online storage options instead, although I don’t think my choice is better than two external hard drives. It was just more convenient for me. It took my very old computer about 9 hours to download my photos and videos onto an external hard drive.
Pro: External hard drives cost one fixed amount, as opposed to a monthly fee.
Con: External hard drives can be broken or fail, and can be filled up, much like my computer’s memory.
Online Storage:
A. There are several free and easy ways to save photos online: upload photos to Picassa, Flickr, or any of the photo printing sites such as Shutterfly or Snapfish. This process took about two weeks of evenings for me, of dedicated uploading, mostly because I wanted to upload individual albums. Or possibly because I was doing it wrong. Plus, I have a bazillion photos and videos. Really. I counted.
Pro: You can’t argue with free. Free is always a great price!
Cons: Some sites reduce the sizes of the photos you upload, or don’t allow you to upload videos, and there’s always a question of longevity- will this free site keep my photos safe forever? Furthermore, I don’t believe any of these sites allow you to download full sized photos back onto your computer.
B. There are some online or cloud-based storage options that you can pay for: Google Docs (free for a certain amount of storage, then you have to pay,) ICloud, Smugmug, and Dropbox. Three professional photographers I spoke with use Dropbox for online storage. I opted for Smugmug, which costs $40/year for the option I selected, and offers both photo printing (which I haven’t yet done,) photo sharing, and the ability to upload videos.
Pros: photos and videos can be uploaded in their full size, which is great when you’re wanting to make larger, more detailed prints. Hopefully photos and videos will be preserved for as long as you pay to keep them. I believe several of these sites also make it possible to download previously uploaded photos back onto your computer.
Cons: price- which varied depending on number and size of photos and videos uploaded. Time- it took me another two weeks of evenings to upload my bazillion photos and videos to SmugMug, again, possibly due to “user error,” or perhaps to my anal retentive desire to keep all photos in descriptive, dated folders.
