Hard Drives Are One Of The Computer RequirementsHard drives are built in to every computer because they are the central storage area for the operating system and all software programs and files. Many top-of-the-line computers that are ideal for digital darkroom use are now available with two drives built in, often both quite large. My personal recommendation is to always have at least one "extra" drive. Use one for a “working” drive for programs and current files. Use the second for a back-up in case one fails. This will ensure against file loss and save major time reloading software from optical discs if a failure does occur. This happened to me only once and that was more than enough. Let me tell you about my system and the reasons I use it. I have a 400 giga-byte(GB) drive built in to my desktop computer. I use this drive for my operating system(Windows XP), all of my program software and hardware drivers and all of my “currently working on” files. It is also the first place I download my camera memory cards. All of this is regularly backed up to a 1 tera-byte(TB) network hard drive. This drive gets used only for back-ups. My wife and I both have a desktop computer for use while at home and a laptop for use while away. These get backed up regularly to the network drive, as well. In addition I use three USB external drives in various sizes for specific file storage purposes: one for all of my fully edited and sorted image and print files, one for storing all files directly relating to this web site and the third for written articles and notes files that are used for magazine and on-line article submissions. These three drives are also regularly backed up to the master network drive. This system has many advantages for me and for others. My files for different purposes are sorted and stored in different places, making it much quicker and easier to find any specific file. I hate having to scroll through hundreds of folders in one location looking for the right one with the file I need. Organizing onto different drives significantly reduces the clutter and I always know where a text file or an image file or a program file will be found. Because each hard drive has less on it and gets accessed less often the time spent defragmenting is greatly reduced. Another big advantage in case of a hardware failure is that many fewer files will be affected and everything is in at least two places at all times. The price, storage capacity and speed of hard drives has become so favorable that it is now quite cheap and easy to set up such a system. And since all of the drives, including the built-ins, are accessible on my home wireless network, I can access files from any drive from a laptop anywhere in the house for those times I don’t feel like working at my desk. I also use a 250GB portable hard drive that fits in a shirt pocket for keeping a current back-up of my laptop’s contents while on the road. This drive weighs about five ounces and is powered by the USB cable so I do not even need to pack a power supply for it. This insures against loss of valuable image files if the laptop should be dropped, damaged in transit or have a hardware failure. Both of our laptops are also capable of burning DVD’s for an extra measure of protection against loss. This may seem exceedingly elaborate and unnecessary to some but I have found many advantages even though I have only suffered one actual hardware failure. My “maintenance” time for defragging and disc clean-up is much lower than when I used only the built-in computer drive for everything. The computer itself runs faster and better with a less cluttered drive. I spend much less time searching for specific folders and files because things are more organized. Finally, I have much improved peace of mind knowing that I will probably never again lose a file because of a hard drive failure.
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