I am dumping 500 gigs of images from hard drive 'a' to hard drive 'b'. Hard drive 'a' will then be erased and used for more files. Hard drive 'b' will be cataloged and stored. These are client files and this will be my only archive of these files.
Electronics are more unstable than film. You need at least three drives of backups. Two drives to have the files on them and the third drive to do a backup from one of the other drives every month. This is the only way to catch files that become unreadable for no reason at all.
In some sense digital images cost more than they seem at first and this must be added into the original price equation. 500 gig Seagate ATA-100 drives are available from CompUSA for $179.99 with free shipping. 500 gig Maxtor ATA-133 drives (also SATA-300) are available from CompUSA and Staples at $249.95
I do know a photographer that makes only one backup and says well if it doesn't work when needed then the customer is out of luck. And from a commercial point of view I can see his point- Peoples aren't paying him to create a library.
