Flash drives for saving photos?

Hi all, I would appreciate some advice as I am a novice with computer issues. I just bought a U3 2GB Cruzer Micro Flash Drive 3 pack from Costco with the intention of copying my photos for back up. I have no idea how much room photos take up, but one folder has 1,028 files (pictures) and in the properties it says 3.63 GB (3,900,626,309 bytes). I have a Dell Dimension 4700 with Pentium 4 CPU 3.00GHz and 2.99GHz, 1.00GB of RAM. I thought this flash drive would accommodate my pictures, but after copying only part of one folder it said "destination drive full, insert another floppy". I have a 2007 pictures folder that in the properties says 18.7 GB, with 9,054 files and 48 sub-folders. I had no idea how much room these pictures were taking up on my c: drive and I didn't even think my computer had that much memory/space on the hard drive!

So can anyone advise me how I could save these photos, what kind of memory stick would I use? Thanks so much for any help, I'm worried about not backing all these pictures up and my computer crashing.

 

your 2GB drive is very small I would get a USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive 160 GB or higher for back up the prices are resonable. I also burn photo's that I feel are very good to CD's just to play extra safe

 

Thanks for the advice I thought my dell only had about 2 gig of memory/space, can you tell me how the whole memory/hard drive space thing works? Do they not make flash drives big enough for saving photos?

 

The memory you refer to is the RAM. You stated your computer has 1.00 GB RAM. That's 1GB. Memory/RAM is used by the computer as a buffer for when you use the computer. Nothing gets permanently stored on the RAM.

The space you refer to on your computer is your hard drive. A hard drive is where your computer permanently stores all of the information on the computer, including Windows, all of your files, settings, etc. Hard drives are typically over 80GB, and even much larger with more recent computers. Obviously, 80GB is a lot of space if all you have on the computer (besides the basic stuff) is pictures.

Flash drives are not meant as a permanent backup solution. They are designed to be portable and easily accessed on any computer they are plugged into. Their main purposes are to: 1. Easily take files with you that you wish to share/use on another computer, 2. Run portable applications from, 3. Transfer files between computers, 4. Keep files you use every day at different computers with you in your pocket.

If you want to reliably backup your photos, I would suggest burning them to DVDs. DVDs are about 4.3GB each, and are relatively cheap (about 50 cents apiece usually when bought in 50 packs and etc.). As long as they are kept in some sort of case/container away from dust, dirt, and other things that could scratch them, they will keep for a long time.

There ARE flash drives big enough to store a lot of pictures. However, they're not as cheap as using DVDs.

Click here for a list of 32GB flash drives (~$100) available on Amazon.com.

Good luck!

 

mscmc makes some good points there. I have seen a person's flash drive get hosed by static electricity. External hard drive would be the best way to go.

E

 

Thanks mc, for the detail info! I have used DVD's in the past but I was looking for a quicker way, also to save everything in one spot. I take so many pics. because I have a 2Gig memory card on two different cameras and I have 4 kids and am always clicking away. The folder "My Pictures" on my c: drive currently shows in properties: 78.5 GB (84,348,334,338 bytes) 37,858 files and 414 folders. Now that you mentioned hard drives have roughly 80 gig of space I guess I should be getting nervous as it is getting too full Maybe that external hard drive would be a good investment?

 

If you have that little free space left on your computer, I would definitely look into getting an external hard drive.

 

If you go to My Computer, right click on C: drive, and select Properties, it will tell you how much total space is on your hard drive, how much is used, and how much is unused as well. From the sounds of it, your hard drive is larger than 80GB.

An external hard drive is a good idea, but the most reliable way to backup pictures is DVDs. Hard drives can go bad at any time. They don't often go bad for several years, but you just never know, and things like family pictures can be priceless. You might look into a Seagate FreeAgent external hard drive... they have 750GB drives for $150 or less (I haven't checked the prices recently). That would be a great investment, and should have enough space for a ton more pictures.