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EHD vs. computer

Roboliver

Roboliver

I feel right at home at the Glitter Gulch!
Joined
Jan 12, 2013
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I'm one of those that gets stressed out with too much on my laptop. I want to transfer some to my External Hard Drive. I hate pulling it out to work on layouts but I have too much stuff to keep on the computer. Do you go back & forth? Do you strictly do one or the other? I'm super curious.
 
All my scrap stuff is on the EHD, but I scrap on a desktop so the EHD is always hooked up and it's not annoying at all.
 
I have photoshop on my pc and laptop (was told to never put that on an EHD but all my digi files are on a large EHD and a second copy onto a portable small one to travel with. That way I have two copies so if one drive fails I have a backup.
 
I scrap with laptop and I store all new scrap stuff on my laptop. I backup on EHD. After I've scrapped with new stuff I just delete them from laptop but the backup remains in EHD. I don't have a huge stash on my computer, the minus side is that after it's on EHD I hardly ever use it anymore.
 
When I was laptop based I stored everything on a portable EHD. My laptop only had a 500GB hard drive so I would have used that up in no time!
 
I struggle with this as well. I know that my computer would work better if I cleared it off. I transfer older stuff to an EHD (2 actually b/c I'm anal about it) and with great pain, delete it from my hard drive. Honestly, most of my memory is sucked up from photos and I just can't seem to delete these, even with back up. I'm a hard drive hoarder, LOL.
 
Before my EHD died & my laptop went for a splash, I had the things I really loved & wanted to use again on my laptop, with my entire digital collection on my EHD, plus I backed up to Backblaze.

If my computer survives, I will probably delete a bunch of stuff off of it once it all gets backed up to Backblaze & keep my stuff stored on the EHD. I don't like having to be hooked up to the EHD, honestly, but I like to know it's all still there should I ever need it.
 
I now have two EHD.. one for digital scrap booking supplies and one for photos... I really find no big mess with having the EHD's... I will un connect from the pc and use it on the lap top when I want... it is great for travel too.
 
All my scrap supplies are on on 2 EHD's. New stuff that I download stays in my downloads folder on my computer until I am done scrapping with it. Then it gets moved to both EHD's and erased from my downloads folder.
 
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I have most stuff on my laptop because if i can't access it easily, I don't use it. I have older stuff on desktop. I keep backups on flash drives (haven't invested in EHD *YET*) but I also use back blaze.
 
I keep everything on my EHD. That way I can hook it up to whichever computer I'm using. We have two desktops and a laptop, so being portable is really convenient. They I back up to an internal HD on my main computer and to another one that I keep at work as my off site backup.
 
I used to keep everything but my programs on an EHD; however, after a couple of upgrades increasing my storage space, I now only backup to EHD.
 
I have an iMac that could theoretically hold everything and then some, but I keep all my scrap and all photos prior to 2012 on an EHD. I am actually more a photographer than a scrapper, so I have close to 30,000 photos, counting raw, jpeg, family, client, etc. Which, for a photographer, is still a low number. But all my scrap supplies and LOs live on my EHD, as well as all photos prior to 2012. I typically move prior year photos to the EHD round about June/July, but I haven't done that yet. I got this iMac at Christmas and I have plenty of HD space on it, so I haven't felt the need to move it.

My only complaint is that my EHD is not particularly fast, so there's often a lag as it dozes, and then when I want to access a file I have to wait a few seconds, but if I am actively scrapping or working from that drive it's fairly snappy.

I have a second EHD that I run Time Machine on for backup.
 
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When I scrapped on a laptop, I had all my photos and supplies on an EHD. When I switched to a desktop with lots of storage space, I moved them all to an internal drive. I backup everything to an EHD and to CrashPlan. Now that I've purchased a laptop for travel, I figure I'll just copy a few things onto a small EHD if I plan to scrap on a trip.
 
I scrap on a laptop and all of my supplies are stored on it. All of my pictures from 2011 and earlier are on an EHD that is hooked up to my (very) old iMac. My plan is to get another EHD to work as a backup for my laptop, as well as a portable EHD to keep my scrap stuff and pictures on.
 
I have not perfected my system yet. I scrap on a laptop and have my stuff on both my laptop and EHD. I backup on EHD as soon as I get nervous ... Which is every other week :) have not been feeling great ever since I read a post on one of the threads that an EHD can also crash ... Looking for an alternative since...
 
I have 4 EHDs. 3 big ones that require power to work (an old--4 years--500GB Seagate, a 1.5TB Western Digital, and a new 2TB Seagate) and a samll 2TB Toshiba that just needs to be plugged into the computer. I use the Toshiba regularly because it's easy to plug into my laptop--just plug it into the USB port. The ones that require electricity are just where I back up my files. The 500GB is pretty much full; I only back up my pics on it right now because there's about 3GB of space left. But that's why I bought the new 2TB Seagate. As my DH likes to joke, I need to back up the backups! ;)

Oh, and I don't keep much on my laptop. Most stuff is kept on the EHDs. (Which is why, technically, my EHDs aren't my "backups": they're the only copies of my files.)
 
Thanks for all the advice & comments ladies. I ended up moving EVERYTHING to my 1 TB EHD finished tagging & such on ACDSee. I kept a few basics on my laptop. I think what I'm going to do is to get another EHD at some point hopefully soon so it will be a back of everything. I just worry about plugging & unplugging the EHD I have now. So afraid it will tear up but if I have 2 with the same things on it, I won't be so worried. I appreciate each & everyone of you for your advice!!
 
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