Computer Talk: External hard drive photo storage question

Forum: Computer Talk Replies: 5, Views: 60 Print -

Author Content weegy12 Rancho Cucamonga, CA October 31, 2009 05:25 PM Post #7228050 Approximately how many photos can be stored on a 500 GB external hard drive? My EXH came with no information. Thank you. hcmcdole Powder Springs, GA (Zone 7b) October 31, 2009 05:40 PM Post #7228091 It depends on how big your pictures are and what format you are saving them in. If your camera can shoot RAW and you opted for that then each picture would be a lot larger than if you shot in JPEG. Let's assume you shoot everything in JPEG. If that is the case each picture will be a different size due to JPEG being a compressed format (throws away a lot of information) but you can get a rough idea what the average size is. For instance I have 182 pictures this month that total 560 MB for this month. That averages to 3 MB per picture. If I divide 500 GB by 3 MB then I could store over 166,000 pictures. weegy12 Rancho Cucamonga, CA October 31, 2009 05:59 PM Post #7228141 Thank you very much. That really helps. Now off to the task of exporting photos from my computer to the EHD. This could take months! Thanks again, hcm. hcmcdole Powder Springs, GA (Zone 7b) October 31, 2009 07:35 PM Post #7228345 It won't take that long - maybe a couple of hours or less ROSES_R_RED Mount Bethel, PA (Zone 6a) November 02, 2009 10:34 AM Post #7233217 Do you have all your pictures in one folder on your hard drive? hcmcdole Powder Springs, GA (Zone 7b) November 02, 2009 11:12 AM Post #7233347 I have my photos organized like this: C:\photos\YYYY\MMM\DD - subject\individual pictures so in this case they are all in one parent folder. I have a scattering of other pictures garnered over the years from friends\email\web sites under My Pictures in various folders. I have a batch program using xcopy that copies newer photos to K: and M: in the same directory structure. I also have Norton Ghost that backs up to M (daily) and K (weekly). I also delete photos off C if they are more than two years old to free up space. M drive is a 1 TB while K is a 500 GB drive. I move my pictures off my memory card to my laptop. I keep maybe six months on my laptop but use the same batch program to copy newer files to my desktop. I also have all the photos on a 400 GB back up drive for my laptop as well. This way I have a back up of all photos on 3 EHDs and the current six months to two years on two computers. I also copied all the pictures to a small EHD (no AC adaptor) for my wife's laptop so that makes four complete backups.

You cannot post until you register, login and subscribe.

Other Computer Talk Threads you might be interested in:

Subject Thread Starter Replies Last Post Hotmail help Calalily 13 Jul 17, 2008 7:51 AM C/Net - Download.com question snowhermit 7 Mar 23, 2008 4:44 PM This 'problem' is driving me nuts! hczone6 9 Oct 31, 2007 11:03 PM Switching from Dell to a new Mac Molamola 23 Nov 22, 2009 3:55 AM Laptop recommendations Gwendalou 10 Jul 30, 2007 6:12 PM