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The new shoebox

Doug Dobbins Special to .TXT

Now that you have a digital camera for your photos, a mini digital video camera for movies and lots of mp3 music files, what can you do to ensure you don’t lose them?

You certainly have more options than in the past, when your parents or grandparents took Super 8 movies and the photos from their cameras and put them in a shoebox in the attic or basement. Or, if they were really organized, they had those old home movies put onto VHS tapes for you to watch over and over.

Technology is making it easier and more convenient to store greater amounts of information, so let’s discuss where to put your memories, because the 21st century requires an electronic shoebox. By that, we mean a handy, organized storage solution that preserves that information and helps you find it easily.

A report from research firm IDC estimates that last year about 161 billion gigabytes of digital information – e-mails, photos, videos, phone calls, etc. – were produced. That equals three million times the information in all the books ever written.

Since it’s easy to fill up the hard drive on your personal computer with all that stuff, you have a decision to make before choosing a storage solution.

You can go with either “non-shared” or “shared” storage.

The non-shared system means you store your data files on a hard drive or burned to CDs and/or DVDs.

You can also add storage that can be used by other computers on a network: the shared option. Alternatives for shared storage include Network Attached Storage (NAS) and home servers, computers that are designed to provide convenient access to media content.

If you decide to use CDs and DVDs as your storage option, you will need a drive that can burn them and blank media to burn the data to. The disadvantage of CD/DVD storage is that data – stored on the CD or DVD disk – is not instantly available.

Finding those files when you move them from hard drive to CD or DVD requires good organization. There are also debates about how long the physical media will last.

The other non-shared storage option is adding an additional hard disk drive to your current computer set-up. You will first need to decide if the drive will be internal or external. You also need to know what physical size of drive you need (3.5 inch for example) and what type of bus is required for your computer (generally IDE, SATA or SCSI). An internal hard drive will cost $125-$200 depending on the size.

For external drives, you will need to choose what type of connection you want the drive to have. The most common types are Firewire, USB 2.0, and with newer computers ESATA (External SATA). If your computer only has an older USB 1.1 port, then do not bother adding an external hard drive via that port, since the rate of data transfer via USB 1.1 is too slow. The cost of external hard drives is decreasing rapidly; a 500-gigabyte hard drive runs between $150 and $225.

If you choose to use shared storage so that files can be accessed by more than one computer via a network, the first option to look at is a Network Attached Storage device, such as TeraStation by Buffalo. The Buffalo NAS has one terabyte of storage capacity and also has extra USB ports for connecting up other USB devices like printers or external hard drives. It attaches to the router on your home network via an Ethernet connection and allows multiple users to access data stored on the NAS.

A NAS will typically cost anywhere from $350 on up depending on size and features.

Apple has taken a slightly different path with their Airport Extreme Base Station. It is a wireless router that uses the 802.11n wireless networking standard. The Airport Extreme does not come with any storage space built in. It has only a single USB 2.0 port, so connecting multiple devices (say, two hard drives or a hard drive and a printer) will require you to add a USB hub.

Web-based storage – the option of taking your data and parking it online from firms such as Carbonite.com or XDrive.com – is one more data-storage choice.

If you choose this option, be sure to check the provider’s reliability, security and compatibility with your operating system.

Whether you decide on shared or non-shared data storage, having additional space for the things in your virtual shoebox will make finding and using your photos, videos and music a pleasure rather than a chore.