all safe and sound

I love the warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you feel all secure.  You know - like when there's a storm coming and you've raced to get home and batten down the hatches and you're indoors, safe and warm with your whole family?  That sort of feeling.

This may sound strange, but I get a similar sensation when I complete a back-up of all my creative media (photo and video) files.  I prefer to do this manually at least every week or more often if I've just imported a large photo shoot or completed a project.

My workflow, all the way from camera SD card to computer hard drive to back-up, means that I never, ever have only one copy of anything.  There are always two copies all along the line.

My problem then is this:

I've kept every single raw photo file, video clip, finished photograph and completed video project since 2011.  Every single byte of information!  This means I now have over 16 terabytes of data on two hard drives, which are then backed up to a series of smaller drives.

But I'm running out of space and need to make a decision.

Do I buy yet more storage and keep going, or do I erase some of the older files that I never ever look at?

It should be simple.  Just get rid of the old stuff I no longer need.  But I know I'd find that really hard to do (not that I'm a hoarder or anything you understand)!  And I also know that if I deleted everything prior to say 2018, I'd immediately badly need a video clip of something from then.  It is, after all, the law of the sod!

I think the only real solution is to archive everything older than 2 years onto a series of cloned discs giving me two copies of it all.  I can then just put these away in a drawer in case they're(*) ever needed.

And who knows, many years from now when I'm long gone, some grandchild or relative might find them, plug them (to goodness knows what!) in and wonder just what the hell their grandad was up to all those years ago!

(* would you believe that Microsoft word wants me to change this abbreviation for they are, to “there”!!!!.  Is there any hope?)

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Ever wondered what I use to haul my camera kit around in?  N... hang on, that was last week.  This week, ever wondered what I use to keep my camera stable whilst taking all my lovely photos?  Go on, you know you do really...

I must warn you though, that the video contains scenes of a distressing and upsetting nature from the very start.  If you are easily offended or of a nervous disposition, please don't watch it!  

There, that's guaranteed a view then!