I sort photos in a directory structure <year>/<event>, a new directory is created for each event where I shot say, 5 or 10+ pics. Other than the usual remove blurred, doubles and a rotate here & there, I don't bother with editing or renaming. For each year I have a 'random' directory where I collect one-off shots made throughout that year. Those I
do rename, like "01 funny bird outside", "02 back of the house" etc, so that in image viewers thumbnails show up in order I shot them in, but with a descriptive file name.
I don't shoot enough photos to further refine this, and backup onto external media is dead easy since you only ever have
added items in that directory structure.
I dream of setting up a RAID setup someday, but for now I pray my HD doesn't crash since I have yet to move them onto external media.
Ouch,
at least copy the stuff you want to keep onto
some external media. Even a quick & dirty copy that's done a few times a year :shakehead is a loooottt better than nothing. Usually the stuff you care about most is exactly the stuff that doesn't take up much space (
for example photos
). USB sticks are cheap & easy to use, when more space is needed, external HD's are cheap too.
If someone doesn't bother to backup files in any way, that says to me one of:
- "I don't grasp the consequences of losing all my files at once". Sometimes files are really small and straightforward to create, but still represent a lot of time/effort invested. Even if it's only photos, those often hold memories that are dear to people. And each photo shot with a digital camera (and not printed!), is a photo that's not on paper sitting in a shoebox somewhere.
- "I don't give a *** about digital files". In which case you might as well not bother collecting those in the first place.
- "I'm too stupid to understand that any storage media can fail at any time". And that's not counting house fires, floods, lightning strikes, a glass of soda spilt in the wrong place, theft or whatever.
- "I have everything of interest stored online". Granted, online services may be more reliable than some people's backup procedures. Other than that, this falls under "I'm too stupid". Online services disappear, or mess with their user's data all the time. Often without warning.
Tip for if you're
really lazy: buy some memory cards in the smallest/cheapest size that's still for sale. For example a bunch of 1 or 2 GB cards at a few $ a piece that can hold hundreds of photos each. After each event where you shoot a # of photos, copy the (new) pics from card to PC - or whatever is used to hold the entire collection.
Every once in a while (as often as you 'can afford',
or for example right
before going on vacation), grab a new/empty one. Toss the used one(s) together in a box somewhere, and
never re-use cards that already have photos on them. For example, mark used cards with year/period.
That way the memory cards themselves serve as backup, and you're very unlikely to lose more than what you've shot since taking the last card into service.