Storing Your Digital Images

By Vincent Bockaert @ DPreview.com

If you value your digital images, you should have a proper backup system in place. In this article, we will look at two storage methods and some backup tips so that you can enjoy your images not only in the short term, but also much further into the future.

Magnetic Storage - Hard disks

The building blocks of digital images are "bits", which can either be "zero" or "one". Magnetic storage devices such as hard disks distinguish a "one" from a "zero" by changing the magnetic properties of the disk in that location. The great thing about hard disks is that their capacities are constantly increasing while prices are constantly dropping. Two hundred gigabyte (1) hard disks (3.5" IDE 7200rpm with 8 MB cache) currently retail under US$100. Such hard disks can hold about 70,000 six megapixel JPEG or 23,000 six megapixel uncompressed RAW images. That's about 700 JPEG or 230 RAW images per dollar.

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