backing up photos

[duffa]

i have a 4gb flash pen ...whats the best way to put photos etc on for backup ? i think i seen someone mention NTFS and FAT32 .. whats the difference and could i compess or zip them to get more on ??

[smithyandco]

Compression has little effect on jpeg images (.jpg) which is most likely what your images are. This is because jpeg images are already compressed.

None of your images are going to be over 2GB is size so format the drive if whatever you please. Though I would recommend NTFS if possible for longer file paths (F:\Photos\Holidays\France\120thTrip\19-10-09\Me_Throwing_Coins_Over_The_Tower.jpg) may cause issues with FAT and FAT32 (If forget what the file path character limit is)

 

For backing up... Either manually copy and paste the photos onto your drive or write a simple batch to automatically add new photos to the pen on each load.

[dutchkev]

i use several 8GB SDHC cards to back up my photos, all in FAT32 format and i just drag and drop a file at a time, never had any hastle at all!

[wwwd]

If you have a lot of photographs, then I'd invest in an external USB hard drive.

 

Because if you have a digital camera which has a decent resolution (i.e. 7 Megapixels or more) then the file sizes are quite large and they will soon add up.

 

The other thing is that an external hard drive is more secure, as once you use it you'll be storing it in a cupboard or drawer. With a pen drive, you're likely to just leave it around or let other people use it so it's more likely to get stolen or get lost.