Arjay Posted December 15, 2015 Report Share Posted December 15, 2015 I'd like suggestions for the best way to back up my Picassa photos in case of a stolen computer or one that goes kaput. The thought of losing thousands of pictures scares me. I've looked at various online backup services and tried to use Google Photos (which claims unlimited storage), but it only downloaded about 20 pics, and I have thousands. I know some companies charge for extra storage and my Picassa pics are very large - roughly between 2 and 4.5 MB each. I bought an extra 16 GB memory stick but it got almost filled up after downloading only one album. How about an external drive? Can I get one in WalMart and, if so, how much? If not WalMart, where else? Any useful suggestions would be most appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ednet94 Posted December 15, 2015 Report Share Posted December 15, 2015 I use google photos. Works good and never had problems of uploading my thousands of pictures. It only takes a pretty long time before all the pictures are uploaded. But it is only Unlimited if your pictures are saved in a lower resolution then the original ones. So watch out about that one. If you want to save them in original size you will need to pay a little when you get over 10gb. Before Google photos I only used external drives. But after one external drive magically erased all my files on it I better use cloud services as backup which I can also enter from whatever device and wherever I want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferret Posted December 15, 2015 Report Share Posted December 15, 2015 I bought 3 Lexar Jump Drives...each one has 128 GIGABYTES and they're $29.99 U.S. each. I ended up buying them from Amazon.com because the pathetic little storage capacity ones they have here just don't cut it. I also wanted Lexar after doing my due diligence. http://www.amazon.com/Lexar-JumpDrive-128GB-Flash-Drive/dp/B00S5V5PJC/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1450155658&sr=8-4&keywords=Lexar+Jump+Drives There is also a 256 GB one from Lexar but the price point was not logical to me when it costs more than 2 of the 128 GB ones. My whine...oh, how I miss the lovely "move to" option that was with Windows XP. It was divine for sorting photos into appropriate albums. This "drag & drop" way of doing pics is time consuming and juvenile. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gilligan Posted December 15, 2015 Report Share Posted December 15, 2015 I use Google's Picasa for hosting pictures but not for backup. Prices for external hard drives have come down so much that you really should look into buying one. 1 Terabyte drives are $ 50 - 60 on Amazon, so you might expect 10% more down here. Best Buy will have them, try Costco, Walmart A 1 Terabyte drive will handle all your pictures and probably most all of your data. You'll be able to preserve all you file sizes also Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferret Posted December 15, 2015 Report Share Posted December 15, 2015 I also have a w/d external hard drive. But, it's attached to the electricity here and we all know what can happen with that even though I have (in the line) a surge protector into the wall, then a voltage regulator into that surge protector and then another surge protector into the voltage regulator into which all my peripherals are plugged (including the external hard drive). I like the "extra" protection of a USB drive that isn't attached to the CFE. ....and I obviously really believe in Murphy's Law. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrm30655 Posted December 15, 2015 Report Share Posted December 15, 2015 Go to :http://www.discosdurosymas.com/22-externos and buy a 1TB external drive for about $60. Buy any brand except Seagate I think they are in Guad. They ship for 100P and take several forms of payment. Very reliable, you will get it within a day or so. Google "Sync Toy" and download the program. It's free from Microsoft. I don't know how you have your pictures set up but the easiest thing to do is to put them all in one master folder and copy that to the external drive. Then you tell "Sync Toy" to synchronize the two drives for that folder. Once that is done, you use Sync Toy to check and see any changes in the original folder and it will make the same changes in the external drive. Sync Toy only copies the changes so it is very fast. If you have a laptop, you should also buy a HD the same size and type as the laptop hard drive and a case (same place) and clone the HD about one a month. Depending on the size and computer speed, this can take 10-12 hours. I do mine overnight. The day the HD fails (and it will), you just pop the old drive out, pop the new one in and you are back in business in 10 minutes unless you have an Apple product or a Dell in which case it is a bit more difficult. With the upload speeds available here, it can take forever to upload to the cloud storage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jguerin Posted December 15, 2015 Report Share Posted December 15, 2015 I have an external drive but not sure how to use it! I plug it, light is flashing, I feel a vibration on it and then what? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerGuy Posted December 15, 2015 Report Share Posted December 15, 2015 Your drive or USB stick should cause a window to open on your computer, asking you what you want to do with it (open it, view pictures, import pictures, play a file, etc) That's your first indication that it's working. After that, you need to know how to copy files from one drive to another. For backing up, you can use the Sync Toy mentioned, or any number of free software backup tools. All of them require some knowledge of file management. External hard drives are not available at Walmart. The cheapest right now run about $1,000p for a 1TB (1000 Mbytes), equivalent to about $62 U.S. They can be had at various computer stores in Guadalajara, including BestBuy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peteben Posted December 15, 2015 Report Share Posted December 15, 2015 Being appropriately paranoid, I use about four separate drives. One is always connected, and gets updated every night. Once a week, I rotate the drives, including one that goes into the safe. Another goes offsite. Drives are so cheap that you should have more than one backup. Pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerGuy Posted December 15, 2015 Report Share Posted December 15, 2015 That's a good way to do it. I find most people get bored with always tucking away their drives somewhere, then re-plugging them next day... and then, not so good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arjay Posted December 16, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 16, 2015 I use google photos. Works good and never had problems of uploading my thousands of pictures. It only takes a pretty long time before all the pictures are uploaded. But it is only Unlimited if your pictures are saved in a lower resolution then the original ones. So watch out about that one. If you want to save them in original size you will need to pay a little when you get over 10gb. Before Google photos I only used external drives. But after one external drive magically erased all my files on it I better use cloud services as backup which I can also enter from whatever device and wherever I want. Well, I did try Google Photos and it only downloaded about 20 pics. Do you know how I can save my Picassa pics en masse in a lower resolution than the originals? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComputerGuy Posted December 16, 2015 Report Share Posted December 16, 2015 As alluded to by Arjay, there are two size settings with Google Photo. One is "unlimited". All your photos are reduced in size, to what they call "high resolution". Or, full resolution, and after a certain amount of storage space, you will be expected to pay. I have tons of photos up there at "full resolution", and the web page says I still have 14GB left. So a little checking reveals you get 15GB, and my photos are not at all saved at the original quality. Since I did not do any of this myelf (Google just sucked up my photos from my phones and tablets and PC), I have no idea what the process is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Candy Posted December 17, 2015 Report Share Posted December 17, 2015 Has anyone used OneDrive to store their photos? Pros/cons? Thx. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arjay Posted December 18, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 18, 2015 I decided to buy an external hard drive from Amazon.com - 1 TB for $50 - not bad (except I have to pay in Canadian dollars (rats!!). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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